


love me tender love me true

by spacenarwhal



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Almost Kiss, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Always a girl Foggy, Always a girl Matt, Assumptions, Birthday, Boxing, Canon-Typical Violence, Claustrophobia, Communication, Declarations Of Love, Drinking, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Families of Choice, Forehead Touching, Friendship, Head Injury, Height Differences, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hurt Matt Murdock, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sex, Law School, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Not Wearing Underwear, Pining, Public Display of Affection, Rescue, Resolved Sexual Tension, Reunions, Secret Relationship, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Temporary Hearing Loss, Time Travel, Trapped In A Closet, Tropes, Undercover As Lovers, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Waltzing, Weddings, now or never kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 37,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6245425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Technically <i>you</i> slid up to me in the hallway and stuck <i>your hand</i> in my <i>back</i> pocket. In front of Rachel and everyone else in Evidence. And you didn’t even have the decency to buy me dinner. I felt used.” </p><p>(Or: Matt, Foggy, and 18 Very Important Ship Tropes)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. faking dating

**Author's Note:**

> All the tropes used in this fic were beautifully listed in this tumblr post:
> 
> http://caseyblevins.co.vu/post/91728314580/important-ship-tropes-fake-dating-secret

If Foggy wasn’t so obviously distressed Matt would laugh. Okay, Matt laughs anyhow. 

He can practically hear Foggy’s scowl when he says, “C’mon buddy, you owe me this one. Remember Rachel Cline?”

Matt winces. Rachel Cline. They were partnered in Wills. She had a tendency to smell like acetone and too much Chanel No. 5. She popped her gum. Constantly. 

She’d also been somewhat infatuated with Matt. (“It’s that mug of yours Murdock, it blinds people to the part where you’re a raging asshole.” Foggy had said drily when Matt had bemoaned his fate. “Gee. Lucky me.”) 

“Technically I didn’t ask you to do it.” Matt points out tactfully, though mentally he’s already preparing an overnight bag and deciding which of his readers he’s bringing with him. 

“Oh, you’re right. _Technically_ you slid up to me in the hallway and stuck _your hand_ in my _back_ pocket. In front of Rachel and everyone else in Evidence. And you didn’t even have the decency to buy me dinner after. I felt used.”

Matt does at least have the decency to blush. “I’m not great at improvising.” 

He hadn’t meant to do it, but Foggy had greeted him so warmly, like he was honestly better for having Matt in his sight even though they’d only been apart since they’d said good bye to each other that morning. Matt’s smile had erupted like it always did when Foggy was so obviously happy (obviously happy because of him). And he could smell Rachel, rapidly approaching, so he’d stepped into Foggy’s personal space and Foggy hadn’t even flinched, hadn’t tensed or hesitated, just dropped his arm over Matt’s shoulder and leaned his weight into Matt’s side—he’d smelled of coffee and buttered bread and the cold January air—his hair loose and falling over Matt’s shoulder when Foggy ducked his head close to share his earphones with Matt. It wasn’t a stretch to wrap his own arm around Foggy’s waist, and if Foggy’s pulse had skipped a full beat quicker, if his body temperature had inched a fragment warmer, Matt didn’t have to try and decipher it. (It was better for them both if he didn’t.) 

“Aw, did you miss me babe?” Foggy had teased, good humor masking the confusion that made his Adam’s apple bob when he swallowed. And Rachel was there, well within ear shot, could undoubtedly see them among their classmates, waiting for the previous class to let out so they could file in into the lecture hall, so Matt tilted his head towards Foggy, so close his nose had brushed Foggy’s hair and he’d slipped his hand into Foggy’s back pocket. 

“I always miss you.” Matt had grinned back, and that was the god-honest truth, though Foggy wouldn’t have been able to hear it if it were a lie. Which it wasn’t. Matt hadn’t understood the significance of that truth until later, after Foggy’s fit of raucous laughter had quieted into hiccups, after they finally took their seats in class, after Professor Montenegro lectured them into a zombie-like stupor. Not until Matt was lying in bed, listening to Foggy’s uneven snores less than eight feet away. _I always miss you._

Foggy’s heart skip-jump-stutters in Matt’s ears but when he answers there’s an underlying snicker in his voice. “You don’t say?”

Matt closes the book on his lap, reclines against his headboard. “So, which cousin’s getting married?”

Foggy throws his arms in the air in victory. “Thank you! Thank you Matty, I am—you’re a true American hero, my friend. I am going to buy you so much beer.”

“I thought you said it was an open bar.” Matt reminds him, smile flicking across his face as Foggy continues to jump in place at the foot of Matt’s bed. 

Foggy flicks his wrist, waves off Matt’s point, “Shut up and let me lavish you with sweet words Murdock.” Foggy’s happiness runs through his voice like an electric current, charges the air between them and sparks in Matt’s chest, makes everything bright. 

Matt’s smile deepens. “If you must.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a feeling that season 2 is going to bring a lot of angst and pain so I'm going to fortify my soul with shameless fluff featuring my two favorite dorks. 
> 
> Title from the song Love Me Tender. 
> 
> Also I've finally made a [tumblr](http://the-space-narwhal.tumblr.com/) for this user name. Come say hi!


	2. Secret Dating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy hasn’t dated in a while, but he’s pretty sure that Chinese, beer, and making out on a couch can be classified as dating. They’re keeping it quiet for now, trying to figure out what it means for them before they get anyone else in their tiny circle of friends and acquaintances involved. It hasn’t exactly been hard. They do pretty much everything they’ve always done with a hundred percent more make outs. It rules.

* * *

 

 

“Okay, text me if you change your mind!”

“We will, thank you Karen.” Matt says, leaning against the door of his office; tie loose at his throat and shirt sleeves rolled up his forearms, looking decidedly unprofessional and unfairly gorgeous considering the heat. Karen smiles at Foggy, shouldering her bag with a jaunty wave before she goes (they’re all of them looking for any excuse to get out of the office and into the loving embrace of any air conditioned room).

The office feels even stuffier once Karen goes, just the thought of air conditioning enough to make Foggy grump given the current heat and the office’s lack of internal ventilation and the deposition sitting in front him that isn’t giving him anything their previous interviews with their client hadn’t already told him. Matt lingers in the door way of his office, and Foggy’s positive he’s seconds away from launching into another spiel about how disgusting the city is in August and how he can’t taste anything but garbage in the air and would it kill Foggy not to leave the milk out a second longer than he’s using it, he can practically hear it going bad every second it’s on the counter. Except that instead of saying anything like that, Matt crosses the distance between their offices and deposits himself on the corner of Foggy’s desk, looking so innocent that it sets off every single warning bell in Foggy’s head. “Karen’s gone.” Matt says nonchalantly, and Foggy knows he’s not stating the obvious. Matt means that she’s gone off his ninja-radar completely, that she isn’t going to be coming back up the stairs for another twenty to thirty minutes depending on how long the line is and how badly she doesn’t want to give up beautifully chilled air.

Oh.

Foggy sits up a little straighter in his chair. Matt smiles like a cat that’s already gotten the cream.

-

What do superheroes talk about over fries and shitty coffee at two in the morning? Foggy will never know because Matt is the worst. Karen and Malcolm are talking amicably to his left while Matt, Jessica, and Luke are embroiled in a conversation to his right. They’re crowded into a corner booth at a 24-hour diner somewhere between their respective offices.

It’s definitely the most Foggy’s ever heard either Jessica or Luke talk. They’re both the strong, silent types. Foggy can easily imagine them walking the streets of the city kicking ass. But then he’s never had to listen to either of them butcher a song from The Lion King while totally shitfaced, which helps maintain that image.

Not that Foggy’s following either conversation. Jessica keeps shooting Foggy looks, and he’s trying not to look like he’s completely spacing but Matt’s hand is on his knee, rubbing little circles over the bend of it, and it isn’t even particularly sexual, but it’s driving Foggy crazy.

They’re still new to this whole thing, only weeks into what might very well be classified as a relationship. Maybe. Probably. Foggy hasn’t dated in a while, but he’s pretty sure that Chinese, beer, and making out on a couch can be classified as dating. They’re keeping it quiet for now, trying to figure out what it means for them before they get anyone else in their tiny circle of friends and acquaintances involved. It hasn’t exactly been hard. They do pretty much everything they’ve always done with a hundred percent more make outs. It rules.

Except for right now, what with Matt touching him in a decidedly non-friend manner and Foggy can’t do anything about it without drawing attention to both of them.

He leans forward a little, tries his hardest to catch even the smallest thread of conversation, but all he can think about are Matt’s fingertips brushing over his knee, just barely grazing the inside of his thigh, lazy and soft. He nudges the heel of his foot against Matt’s ankle, jostles the table leg in the pocess hard enough that the table top rattles. “Oops, sorry.” Foggy mumbles, picking up his coffee cup before too much of it sloshes out onto the table. Karen slips napkins in Foggy’s direction. Jessica’s eyes narrow in his direction, though she’s technically still talking to Luke.

“Alright there, Fogster?” Matt asks, tilting his face just slightly towards him, smile teasing, palm cupping over his knee now.

“Totally, buddy.” Foggy answers, tapping his heel against Matt’s ankle a little more carefully. Across the table Jessica makes a gagging noise into her coffee.

-

Claire snaps her gloves off with a sigh. “If he tries to move—”

“Sit on him.” Foggy says, forcing a grin he totally isn’t feeling.

Claire gives him a small smile. “Whatever works.”

She doesn’t say anything about the fact that Foggy’s barefoot and wearing pajamas. Just like Claire didn’t say anything when Matt took Foggy’s hand while she pulled tidy stitches through his side. Foggy doesn’t know if he should say anything either.

“Take care Foggy.” She says before he’s decided, and sees herself out.

-

“Wanna hear something crazy?” Brett asks, taking a bite of the hot dog he charged Foggy in exchange for meeting during his lunch break. Foggy pushes his own mouthful of hot dog into the side of his face so he can say, “Sure.” He’s hoping for an interesting case to break up the monotony of writing memos and reading court rulings that might, maybe, possibly prove relevant but usually don’t.

“You know Mr. Dominguez? He lives in Ma’s building.” Foggy nods, taking another bite of his lunch. He’ll have to brush his teeth and drink Listerine if he wants to try kissing Matt any time today. While the list of things he’s willing to do in the name of love is a long one, giving up sauerkraut because Matt thinks its gross even if he’s not the one eating is nowhere on it. “Any way they play cards every once in a while,” Brett says, pausing to take a sip of his soda. If Foggy’s mouth wasn’t full of delish pickled cabbage and meat of questionable origins, he’d reminisce about how Bess Mahoney taught him everything he knows about cleaning house in a game of Texas Holdem. “He said the other night he was coming home and he swears he saw the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”

Foggy makes an inquisitive noise, hopes his face conveys the right level of detached interest that is in no way incriminating. “Yeah he’s been making the rounds…from what I’ve… _read_ in the papers.”

Brett makes a face that expresses how he feels about Daredevil making the rounds on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, but he wipes at his mouth and keeps going, “Get this: According to Mr. Dominguez, he saw Daredevil kissing some guy.”

Foggy’s never had hot dog lodged in his lung before, but now he has firsthand knowledge about how much it sucks. Brett hits his back too hard while Foggy hacks up his heart, and by the time he’s cleared his airway his eyes are watering and he’s sweating. “Never took you for a prude, Nelson.” Brett says flippantly, and Foggy chugs his soda in the hope that it’ll get his heart to calm the fuck down.

“What, no—”

Brett shrugs, dropping his hand from Foggy’s back now that his death by hot dog is no longer imminent. “I mean I get it if you’re thing’s Thor or Captain America. Shit, I’ll even give you the guy with the bow and arrows, but Daredevil? Why would you want someone to dress up like him? Crazy right?”

(“Are we really doing this?” Foggy asked, eyes shooting towards the opening of the alley. Matt grinned, standing in front of him in that ridiculous costume that somehow _worked_ , stupid little horns and all. One day, Foggy was going to need to have his head examined to figure out what was wrong with him. “Only if you want to counsellor.” Matt answered, and it was a head trip, that Daredevil could sound like Matt and smile like Matt, and still be Matt. Foggy stepped closer. The alley was dark and the streets were quiet and Matt could probably hear someone looking in their general direction anyway. “Well if that’s how it’s going to be.” Foggy said, reaching up and pressing his palm against the ridged armor plating that covered Matt’s chest and protected the living heart inside. Matt inched closer, gloved fingers tipping Foggy’s face upward. The mask dug into Foggy’s skin when Matt kissed him.)

“Yeah,” Foggy croaks. “Crazy.”

-

Foggy’s phone vibrates in his pocket. Matt pulls back with a sigh. His lips are red and his cheeks are pink and there’s a little indentation on the bridge of his nose from wearing his glasses all morning before Foggy pulled them off when the kissing started.

Foggy is beyond smitten.

“Ignore it.” Matt mumbles, leaning back in and mouthing distractingly at the skin behind Foggy’s ear. It feels like it’s been an eternity since the last time they had any time alone. Really, truly, genuinely alone. And even longer since Foggy went to sleep next to Matt instead of just waking up next to him on the occasional morning. Daredevil’s attention has been in high demand throughout the city.

Foggy groans, wants desperately to throw his phone in the trash can and do something dramatic, like clear his desk and stretch Matt out over it instead. But he’s just gotten his papers in order and he doesn’t think he can actually lift Matt. The guy’s tiny but he’s like ninety-eight percent solid muscle and two-percent Catholic guilt, he weighs a ton.

His phone buzzes again.

“It’s probably Karen.” Foggy points out, turning his head away before Matt can distract him with another kiss, though it doesn’t entirely work when he starts in on Foggy’s neck instead.

Foggy sighs, fumbling his phone out of his pocket to check his messages. Yep. Karen.

_Sure you don’t want anything?_

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Foggy asks, and Matt’s grin curves into Foggy’s skin, warns of something horrible to come. “I want you.” Matt doesn’t disappoint.

“I don’t think Karen’s gonna have much luck finding that in the store.” Matt chuckles, kneading his fingers into Foggy’s sides.

Foggy winds up asking for French onion Sun Chips, black Red Vines, and diet grape soda. It gets him an extra twelve minutes of quality time with Matt in exchange. It’s so nice he almost forgets to feel bad about asking Karen to look for things he doesn't really care if she finds or not.

Matt heads back to his office when he hears Karen’s footsteps on the stairs, leaves Foggy with one last kiss to the corner of his mouth, runs his fingers through Foggy’s hair fondly before he goes. Foggy can’t help smiling at his laptop, giddy and light in a way that still sometimes takes getting used to.

“Sorry Foggy, no one eats black Red Vines.” Karen says when she steps into his office, dropping a bag on his desk with a crinkle of plastic.

Foggy grins up at her in thanks. “It’s okay, thanks for trying Karen.” He pulls out his chips and soda.

“Oh, uh, Kare, I think you forgot these.” He says, holding up a packet of men’s razors. Karen smiles at him, all carefree generosity when she says. “No, those are for Matt. To cut down on the stubble burn. You should try moisturizing before you guys make out next time Foggy, it really works.”

Matt’s startled laughter carries across the lobby.


	3. trapped in a small space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I feel like this violates some law of truth or dare.” Foggy says, sounding genuinely offended on behalf of truth or dare players the world over. He takes a small step back, jostling the coats around them as he tries to maneuver in the narrow space. Matt hums considerately, “You have to give Marci credit though, it was a pretty masterful dodge.” Which it had been. Only Marci could take someone else’s dare and somehow land Matt and Foggy in a closest instead. He would never admit it, on the grounds that he and Marci had reached a very fragile peace agreement for Foggy’s sake and admitting as much would irrevocably shatter it, but he really is impressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can read this as a law school au if you'd like.

* * *

 

 

He can still hear the party on the other side of the door; feel the bass vibrating through the floorboards, reverberating in his teeth. The closet is small, crowded with jackets and shoes. The shut door traps in the smell of mothballs and the strong smell of old rubber that emanates off something stashed somewhere behind them. Whenever he moves he bumps into some part of Foggy, who’s holding himself tense and still, his earlier cavalier attitude significantly dampened by the dark.

“I feel like this violates some law of truth or dare.” Foggy says, sounding genuinely offended on behalf of truth or dare players the world over. He takes a small step back, jostling the coats around them as he tries to maneuver in the narrow space. Matt hums considerately, “You have to give Marci credit though, it was a pretty masterful dodge.” Which it had been. Only Marci could take someone else’s dare and somehow land Matt and Foggy in a closest instead. He would never admit it, on the grounds that he and Marci had reached a very fragile peace agreement for Foggy’s sake and admitting as much would irrevocably shatter it, but he really is impressed.

“I hope Allen’s better at drafting legal documents than he is at making up a dare.” There’s an edge to his voice, barely noticeable through Foggy’s typical demeanor of causal cheerfulness. Matt wonders if it’s a latent reaction to being forced into a closet with him while the party carries on without them beyond the door. Foggy shifts restlessly, the toes of their shoes scuff against one another. His hand bumps into Matt’s shoulder as he reaches overhead. There’s the clink of Foggy swatting at a bare bulb, but he doesn’t find anything with which to turn on the light. Foggy drops his arm with a frustrated sigh.

“Has it been seven minutes yet?” Foggy asks, hand ghosting down the length of Matt’s arm. Matt feels it as steadily as he does the music pulsing in the air. “No.” Matt answers, the back of his hand touching Foggy’s stomach when he moves to touch the face of his watch. Foggy jumps, his heart racing momentarily before he forces out a long exhale, empties his chest before sucking in as deep a breath as possible, lungs expanding to their limit behind his ribs. “It’s been, maybe two.” Foggy’s heart taps out an unfamiliar rhythm. Matt’s heard before just never from Foggy, strains his ears to make sure he’s hearing it right through the mess of music and conversation on the other side of the door. “Great. Awesome.” Foggy fidgets. “Five more to go.”

Matt frowns. “Foggy, are you okay?” Foggy moves (a shrug, Matt thinks, based on the shift of Foggy’s clothes and the hanging jackets). When he speaks his words are pulled a little tighter, “Me? Totally! Nothing wrong here. Except for this music, right?”

(Foggy’s musical tastes run a dizzying rampant, country and hair rock and show tunes. There was a time, during their first month of cohabitation, when he’d played the _Wicked_ soundtrack on repeat so many times Matt thought he would have to strangle Foggy with his earphones.)

Matt grins, though he knows it’s undoubtedly too dark for Foggy to make it out in here. “Well it’s sure not Tim Rice.”

Foggy’s laughter is too thin, wavers like a scratched record. “Hey, _Chess_ was just ahead of its time.”

Matt follows the scattered tempo of Foggy’s heart, so at odds with his willfully measured breathing, lets it lead him until his fingers are brushing over the knob of Foggy’s elbow. Tension seizes Foggy’s arm, his breath catches. “This okay?” Matt asks, his voice pitched low though there’s no one listening at the door now, everyone’s moved away to seek better entertainment.

There’s the shift of Foggy’s hair along his back and over his shoulders which Matt knows as nodding, and then he says, voice almost as low as Matt’s. “Yeah.”

“When I was a kid,” Matt says before he’s even figured out what he’s going to say, “I was afraid to walk over manholes because I thought Shredder would get me.”

Foggy chuckles. “Dude did Shredder even live in the sewer?”

Matt shrugs, almost laughs when he realizes Foggy can’t see it. “I have no idea. I was seven and convinced he was going to grab me and pull me under.” Dad had forbidden Ninja Turtles in the apartment for months after.

Matt slides his hand down the length of Foggy’s forearm, wraps his fingers loosely around his wrist so that he can feel the one-two beat of Foggy’s pulse against his fingertips.

“Well, sure.” Foggy swallows, his carefully composed breathing falling a little out of sync. “That would be disconcerting to anyone.”

Matt gives a quiet laugh, keeps his grip relaxed in case Foggy wants to pull away. He doesn’t.

“It’s not a dark thing,” Foggy says finally. Matt wants to say it would be okay if it was. Matt remembers what it was about the dark that used to frighten him, when he was just a kid sitting at the kitchen table waiting for Dad to come home. It was the possibility of it, the thought of what could be there, hiding in the shadows. Now the dark is deeper and vaster than an ocean, but Matt knows it, can smell it and taste it and hear it and touch it. There aren’t very many secrets it can keep from Matt now. But Foggy’s heart is already steadying, less frightened though not quite at ease just yet, and so Matt presses his lips together and waits for him to continue. “It’s more a close quarter’s thing. I’m not really super into confined spaces.” Foggy admits sounding sheepish, and Matt wonders what shade he turns with all that blood rushing to his face. He imagines it’s the shade of cotton candy, pink and airy and sweet.

“Your secret’s safe with me.” Matt says sincerely, hopes Foggy can pick out the smile in his voice, that he’ll know what it means to Matt to be trusted with each and every piece he’s willing to share.

“Anything scare you these days or are you a man without fear now?” Foggy asks.

Matt’s smile wanes, though he keeps his voice light when he answers. “I’m not really worried about iron clawed ninjas grabbing me in the street anymore if that’s what you’re asking.” Foggy’s snort is soft, more a quick inhale than actual laughter. He lets his eyes slip shut behind his glasses, grounds himself in the beat of Foggy’s heart and his breathing and the music shivering beneath their feet. Stick spoke about fear as a weakness, but try as he might Matt’s never been able to lose it, his constant companion through so much of Matt’s life he doesn’t know who he’d be without it.

”Yeah Foggy I get scared too.” Matt says, because he owes Foggy more than he can repay in a lifetime, the least he can offer him is this. Foggy’s pulse skips under Matt’s fingers. “Is it snakes?” He jokes and Matt’s face creases with a smile before it smooths out again, serious and drawn.

For a long time Matt thought he could be fearless, after Stick had left him behind but the need to prove himself still ran strong. Because the worst had already happened, time and again, it just kept happening, what else did Matt have to be afraid of? But right now, standing in a cramped closet with Foggy’s wrist in hand, Matt’s starting to realize that fear isn’t just about the bad things that might happen. It touches the good things too.

“Guess I’m just afraid of not doing the things I should do because I’m scared.” Matt answers, unsure. Of all the things he thought might happen when Marci picked them to go into a closet; he hadn’t really imagined this particular scenario. Foggy always does tease him about not having broad enough vision.

Foggy’s arm shifts, and Matt mourns the loss of contact up until Foggy’s palm slides over his, his fingers curling around Matt’s and clasping their hands together. His breathing changes. “Like what?” Foggy asks, and it isn’t fear in his voice anymore, or at least, it isn’t just fear, it’s something else too, something that runs warm and smoother than silk, drapes itself over Matt as gently as the dark. Matt shakes his head silently, swallows, steps forward so that his feet are slotted between Foggy’s. Foggy’s other arm swings forward, follows the line of Matt’s body until it closes on his shoulder. They could start dancing, Matt thinks vaguely, overly aware of every point of contact between them, though there isn’t much room in here for a waltz. Matt almost offers to lead so they don’t trip over the shoes lining the floor. Foggy’s hand covers the nape of his neck and Matt knows they aren’t going to dance, leans forward and feels out the distance between them. His lips touch Foggy’s chin, scratchy with stubble. Foggy must feel the face he makes in response, laughs against the top of Matt’s nose. What a night.

“Sorry buddy, wanna try that again?” Foggy’s mouth touches the slope of Matt’s nose, smiles over his cheek, sets Matt’s heart thumping away in his ears, loud enough to drown out the horrible racket of the party outside. Matt turns his head into the next kiss before it lands, grabs a hold of the front of Foggy’s shirt with his free hand and holds on tight.

“I don’t like mimes either.” Matt mumbles against Foggy’s mouth when he pulls back, though he stays close, still held in Matt’s grasp. Not that he’s trying to get free.

Foggy’s mouth contorts into a grin too wide to keep kissing, and Matt laughs breathlessly, glasses pressing into the bridge of his nose, knocked slightly off center by Foggy’s face. Foggy’s heart thunders in Matt’s bones, chest to chest in the dark.


	4. huddling for warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’re just friends, and friends help friends ward off hypothermia in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a final this Friday so I don't think there'll be an update until this weekend. Enjoy some Oblivious!Foggy until then.

* * *

 

 

The apartment isn’t much bigger than a dorm room but it is theirs.

Everything from microscopic kitchenette and the ugly moss green carpet that’s been treaded thin by other tenants. Even the rattling radiator that is constantly in its death throes is theirs, though Foggy wouldn’t mind trading it in for another. Preferably one they could actually use. Their landlord has looked at it twice already since the temperature started dropping, but other than a semi-ominous and entirely serious warning not to overwork the thing, or risk burning down the entire building, not much has come from it. For now, there’s a space heater buzzing away in the center of the room, oscillating in front of the couch that delineates Matt’s half of the room from Foggy’s— “So it’s basically a dorm room?” Cadence said when she’d seen the it, utterly unimpressed by Foggy’s bourgeoning adulthood—but it’s too small to generate enough heat to fill the room. It isn’t a problem necessarily, the couch big enough to seat them both at the same time, though at the rate this winter’s going they might have to take up permanent residence on the couch until spring.

“Why is it so cold?” Foggy asks for the third time that hour, huddling further into his fortress of blankets on his end of the couch. It’s too cold to type, but Foggy doubts Professor Conner will accept that as a legitimate excuse for not turning in this brief. “And before you answer that Bill Nye, I’m not actually looking for an answer.”

Matt chuckles, fingers never pausing over his book like the dedicated, devastatingly handsome nerd he is. “Then stop asking.”

Foggy gives Matt his best withering stare, makes sure to describe it in excruciating detail so that Matt can get the full experience. That earns him Matt’s goofy grin, which never fails to make Foggy’s heart do summersaults and handstands and other improbable agile feats.

 _‘Be cool bro._ ’ He reminds himself, but it’s hard to follow his own advice when Matt looks nothing less than adorable, beanie covering his ears and sleeves pulled down over his knuckles, sitting crossed legged with a blanket strewn over his lap.

As far as arrangements of convenience go it isn’t a bad one, they’ve basically old pros at sharing space by now, working in harmonious quiet for long periods of time. The problem doesn’t present itself until it’s time to call it a day. Their respective beds are situated as far apart as they could possibly be, arranged for maximum privacy in the event that either of them ever wants to bring someone over to spend the night. Which they haven’t done to date, but the option’s there at least. (Contrary to whatever his sister says, they do date. Not each other, because that would be—well it’s not happening, and Foggy isn’t pining. He isn’t. But law school is hard and failing isn’t a choice and Matt really is a great guy, it’s not Foggy’s fault if he hasn’t made any attempt in months to remedy his romantic dry spell.)

It was a toasty five degrees all day (a high this week) and the night is even colder. Even under two blankets and flannel sheets Foggy can’t sleep for the chattering of his teeth. He rubs his socked feet together, his toes throb as they warm at a glacial space. Matt offered the space heater after they got it, but Foggy couldn’t take it and just leave Matt out in the cold. (“You know you can buy one for, like, twenty bucks at Duane Reade right?” A very Candace-like voice whispers in his head, but Foggy’s as good at ignoring it as he is at ignoring it in person.)

There’s a creek in the dark, and it could be anything really, from the things Foggy doesn’t want to think of as rats to the disquieted spirit of a long dead tenant who probably froze to death in this very apartment.

But it’s probably just Matt.

Foggy can barely make him out by the dim yellow light that slits through the blinds from the street lamps outside, but he’s guessing from the amorphous blob-shape of him that Matt’s wrapped in his own bedding. He usually is.

Matt hasn’t said anything since the first night they did this, just shrugs off his blanket once his knees have knocked gently into the side of the mattress. He shakes it out with an airy whoosh, extends it over Foggy, a feathery light weight atop his own covers that Foggy’s getting used to. Foggy budges over, because that’s the routine, already steeling himself for the rush of cold air that accompanies Matt as he slides under the blankets.

This bed is barely bigger than the one provided by Columbia, but Foggy doesn’t think they’d move away from each other even if they had a king-sized to share. It would totally defeat the purpose. Though, Foggy concedes, if they could afford a king-sized bed they’d probably be able to afford an apartment with insulation in the walls or working heating or some other type of luxury they can scarcely imagine right now. He turns on his side because by now they’ve gotten this whole thing down to a science. Or a ballet. Or anything that requires careful planning and lots of practice.

As usual Matt throws Foggy for a loop because that’s what Matt does, pulls the carpet out under Foggy’s feet just as he’s getting ready to drift off to sleep. Matt, talented man that he is, manages it in a single roll, turning towards Foggy tonight. Somehow it feels less intimate and yet more intimidating than when he presses his back to Foggy’s chest though there’s probably more space between them now than there has been every other time they’ve done this. Their arms bump against one another’s when Matt folds his arms over his chest, like he’s trying to hug the warmth as close as he possibly can. His foot knocks into Foggy’s when he shifts.

 _‘Be cool._ ’ Foggy thinks, like he has every other night, and he thinks that eventually he’ll even manage it. Hope springs eternal and all that. “Good night Fog.” Matt says, which is in and of itself perhaps the most mundane deviation from the norm that could possibly occur but it still knocks Foggy over like the opening notes of a big band serenade. “G’night Matty.” Foggy whispers back. He’s past the point now where the proximity is enough to keep him awake. This is nothing, he reminds himself, closing his eyes to keep from trying to make out Matt’s face in the dark. They’re friends. Maverick and Goose, except neither of them is going to die. They’re just friends, and friends help friends ward off hypothermia in the night.

(One day Foggy will look back and shake his head incredulously while Matt smirks smugly and says, “Exactly how many other friends have you spooned through the winter?”).

Besides, he reasons, sleep creeping over him as he listens to the even in and out of Matt’s breathing right beside him, it is warm.


	5. interrupted declarations of love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a plan. There are, in fact, many plans. 
> 
> Matt’s good at planning. The quality of his plans, well, that’s subjective (“Pretty sure it isn’t up for debate when your spleen’s hanging out your side, Matty-boy.”), but the original point stands: Matt’s good at planning. 
> 
> It’s the rest of the world he can’t seem to get on board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've officially reached the portion of the prompt list where I get a little creative in my interpretations. Yay!

* * *

 

 

The first time he almost says it is at the office. It’s late, but the weather has finally started to cool down, the last summer heat wave winding down into milder autumn weather. The windows are open to let in the breeze, and Matt’s too relieved to be done with the stifling humidity and wet heat to be overly bothered by the scent of car exhaust carried in on the wind. Karen and Foggy are laughing at something and it isn’t that Matt isn’t listening so much as he’s enjoying it, everything, trying to compose a complete mental impression of the moment for when it’s gone (the chime of Karen’s earrings when she shakes her head, the timber of Foggy’s chuckle, the shuffle of paper and the tap of their shoes over the floorboards, the feeling that stirs inside his chest, like being home). Karen excuses herself and Matt listens to the quiet retreat of her flats as she makes her way to the kitchen, the wheezing of cabinet hinges and the groan of the building’s pipes as she fills the coffee pot with water. Foggy’s still hiccupping with laughter, his happiness a tangible thing, Matt imagines reaching out and touching it. The thing about bad days is that they make the good days all that much better, and he knows Foggy will never agree with him, but it’s true. And today has had all the makings of a good day.

A client successfully served through the law and a victory for their rinky-dink operation. The streets have been quiet for almost a full week now, Matt’s patrols short and uneventful, and when he comes home Foggy is there, radiating more relief than weariness, the sour worriedness that hangs around him lightened to the point where it’s almost not even there.

Matt had done Foggy’s tie that morning, looped the smooth silky material over and under into a perfect half-Windsor, slid Foggy’s tie clip on and rubbed his thumb over the raised _F_ before Foggy had batted his hands away and said there wasn’t any time for distractions. “We’ve got a case to win, buddy.” And now they have, and even though they still have the last loose ends to spool, there’s still an effervescent giddiness in the air, as persistent as spring pollen. It makes Matt’s head feel dizzy and warm and full to the point of bursting.

And he thinks if he said it now, if he said, _Foggy I love you_ , it could be one more good thing to remember.

Foggy swallows another giggle, draws a short breath in as Matt opens his mouth, lips widening around the first exhale of a word, and there’s a second’s worry at the back of his brain when he thinks of their words rushing forward into a head-on collision before— “Foggy did you remember to get more half-and-half?”

Foggy’s breath catches, and whatever he was about to say gets cleared away in a single rough laugh. “Shit! I’m sorry.” Then Foggy heaves a sigh, rising up out of his chair, footsteps heavy as he rounds the table and leaves the room all together. Matt listens to his voice in the kitchen, the sheepish apology and the earnest promise to right this wrong before Karen’s coffee has finished brewing. Then he’s back, jiggling his wallet free from the jacket draped over the back of his chair. “I’m running to the store real quick. You need anything buddy?” Foggy asks, dropping his hand to Matt’s shoulder for a quick squeeze before he starts for the door again.

Matt shakes his head.

Next time he tells himself. Next time.

-

There is a plan. There are, in fact, many plans.

Matt’s good at planning. The quality of his plans, well, that’s subjective (“Pretty sure it isn’t up for debate when your spleen’s hanging out your side, Matty-boy.”), but the original point stands: Matt’s good at planning.

It’s the rest of the world he can’t seem to get on board.

-

The third time he means to do it; the opportunity is perfectly crafted. They’re at home (Foggy’s apartment still, but not for much longer, maybe, not if Matt can do this the right way). Matt’s making dinner because he knows Foggy likes when he cooks even if Matt’s meals aren’t really anything impressive. Foggy’s already opened the bottle of wine Matt brought over and the game is playing low in the background. Matt knows how this will happen, a quiet meal and an actual bottle of decent wine, kissing Foggy on the couch, climbing into his lap and weighing him down into the cushions, knees bracketing his hips. Matt will take Foggy’s face in his hands, palms careful and fingertips soft as he traces the curves and angles of a face he’ll never see but that he knows so well. Matt will kiss him, gently, listen to the wistful sigh that leaves Foggy’s lips, so soft and only for Matt. He’ll lean into the steady press of Foggy’s hands at his hips, bear his weight forward because he knows Foggy will take it, that he’ll hold Matt steady. He’ll memorize the melody of Foggy heart throughout his body when Matt leans close and tells Foggy that he loves him. It will be perfect.

The first siren shrieks at a distance, and Matt listens to it even as he lowers the heat at the stove, just waiting for it to come to a boil so that they can eat. A lone siren doesn’t need to mean anything, but its joined by another, and another, their dirge intensifying as they come nearer. He accepts a glass of wine from Foggy but doesn’t raise it to his lips, focusing instead on the trajectory of the sirens, listening and listening and listening until he hears it, a hurricane of noise carried on a shifting wind.

“Matt?” Foggy asks, worried, but already the game broadcast is interrupted with news of a hostage situation.

Foggy sighs, a harsh, unhappy sound. He reaches out and takes the untouched wine glass from Matt’s hand. “Go be a hero.” He says, resignation so heavy in his voice that it makes Matt feel small, but he can’t ignore it, has never been able to ignore it, the sirens and the screaming. He’s already routing the quickest path towards the melee.

He presses a single bruising kiss to Foggy’s mouth.

Foggy doesn’t let him say goodbye, not now, not ever, like they can trick fate or luck or God into giving them more time if only they don’t remind the universe at large that one day Matt will leave and not come back.

“I’ll save you a plate.” Foggy says with a levity that isn’t entirely forced but not completely genuinely either.

“Thanks.” He answers, dropping one last kiss to Foggy’s lips. All he tastes is wine. Next time, he won’t wait.

-

He almost gets it the next time.

He’s so close there’s a second where he thinks he’s actually said it, listening to Foggy’s lungs pinch and his heart rush behind them, and Matt is so glad to have finally said it, to have taken the weight those words out of his mouth. He’d been so afraid tonight, as he staggered bleeding and alone, that the weight of them would bury him. But when he tries to say as much all that comes out is a thin sound, barely more than a wheeze, and his chest aches under the invisible force of something pushing him down onto the cold floor boards.

There’s a ringing in his ears he can’t seem to shake, Foggy’s voice an indistinct murmur he has to strain his ears to hear. His words seem to slosh together, loose and untidy, Matt can’t make out the meaning of them at all.

(“Don’t die, please Matt. Don’t die on me okay? Please just don’t die.”)

His tongue is sluggish behind his bloody teeth but he thinks if he focuses, if he tries harder he can do it, he can say it, he just needs to draw a deep enough breath (he’s drowning on dry land, sea tide rising higher and higher inside his chest). The air tastes like salt and copper.

He chokes out a sound that feels like Foggy’s name across his lips before the ringing in his head crests, deafens him to everything else, blots out the world in its entirety and not even the shaky warmth of Foggy’s hand against the side of his face remains.

When he wakes up its to the irritating beep of a monitor keeping time, feels like he’s wrapped in steel wool. The worst are the prongs stuck in his nose, the odd smell of medical oxygen that seems to coat everything.

Foggy’s there, sitting at the side of his bed, drowsing in fitful sleep that won’t last long. Matt listens, spreads his focus out in order to get his bearings. He thinks he hears Karen’s voice down the hall, Claire’s somber reply.

(“Do you think they believe us?” “Who knows. Maybe. People get mugged all the time. But we can’t count of that kind of luck next time something like this happens.”)

“You okay?” He hadn’t heard Foggy wake, flinches a little bit in surprise. That, more than anything, tells him how bad this is.

Matt tries to talk but his voice is a dry rasp that aches in his throat so he nods, swallowing a few times to see if he can reduce the wooly feeling in his mouth. He can’t.

Later, after Matt’s spoken to a doctor who tells him about his collapsed lung and his bruised ribs, and that he’s going to feel rough for a while longer. The doctor doesn’t say he’s lucky he wasn’t hurt worse, and Matt’s grateful for it. He can practically feel Foggy’s eyes on him the whole while regardless, his worry bleeding out into the room. They talk about filing a police report, and Matt feels ashamed to know that the men he was pursuing last night got the better of him, overpowered him and hurt him badly enough to require all this attention. For causing so much inconvenience for everyone he knows.

After the doctor leaves Foggy pulls his chair a little closer. Matt turns over the hand closest to him, palm skyward. A silent appeal he probably has no right to make.

Foggy’s palm is warm against his, his fingers ruthless when they slot between Matt’s and hold on.

“Foggy, I—”

Foggy shakes his head, a quiet whish of unwashed hair, “Not right now Matt. Please.” ( _Please just don’t die._ )

Matt keeps quiet. It’s the least he can do.

-

“Do you think the restaurant will honor our reservation if we tell them we’re only late because you were saving the city from a robot assassin?” Foggy asks, voice still a little dazed even as Matt yanks another plate of metal off the robot assassin in question. It spits and pops like oil left to heat too long, electricity snapping through the air and Matt knows that even if the restaurant does respect their reservation (which they’re an hour and a half late for already), they’ll probably have a problem with Matt’s singed and torn suit jacket. And, though he can’t be sure without touching it, he’s pretty sure half his tie got cut off in the fight.

Matt grunts, tossing the plate in the direction of the growing pile of scrap metal. “Don’t think so, pal.”

Foggy nods, humming a little absentmindedly as he kicks at a stray bolt near his foot. “Yeah, I didn’t so either.”

-

The table is set. Dinner is cooked. The wine is breathing. There are flowers in a vase the florist assured him were visually pleasant, and he’s even lit candles. (Matt bought candles.)

(“Special occasion?” The woman at the flower shop had asked politely while Matt had fiddled with the strap of his cane and resisted the urge to ask which flowers best said ‘I love you and I’m sorry I’m not better for you.’)

Everything is ready. Matt is ready. The only thing missing is Foggy.

He’d texted earlier to say he would be about twenty minutes late, and twenty minutes late was almost an hour ago. Matt isn’t worried, because Foggy is “a grown-ass man who is capable of taking care of myself even if I can’t Chuck Norris someone’s face in”.

But the streets _are_ dangerous, Matt knows that better than most. Foggy has never stood him up before—no matter how much Matt probably deserves it in retribution—and he said twenty minutes but he isn’t here. The candles are melting down in their holders and dinner is probably going to dry out before they eat but all Matt can think about is Foggy in trouble while he’s pacing here uselessly.

He’s just made up his mind to go, padding across the room to the closet where he still keeps the suit when he hears it: the familiar tread of Foggy’s footsteps on the stairs. The fist clenched around his chest relaxes its vice grip and Matt breathes deep for the first time that hour. He retreats back to the table, pours the wine, careful that not a single drop spills onto the table cloth which Karen helped Matt buy last week. He’s set the bottle back down and turned back towards the stove when he hears the scrape of Foggy’s keys in the lock.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He hears Foggy chant as the door shuts behind him, so forcefully it’s just shy of slamming, the force of it reverberates throughout the room. Foggy’s keys clatter on to the floorboards, a clang of metal and plastic. “Fuck.”

“Foggy?” Matt calls out, Foggy bites down on a sigh, exasperation bleeding into that single long exhale he tries to hold back.

Foggy doesn’t raise his voice, a true sign of distress as Matt knows it. “She _shanghaied_ me, Matt. She said she wanted to talk about the case but it just turned into an hour long sales pitch from Hell and I kept trying to leave—” Foggy shoves his keys back into his coat pocket, starts down the hall way, “And the worst part is Matty that she doesn’t even given a shit about me. I’m like a consolation prize she’s gotta make due with, because what she’s really after here, of course, is you.” Foggy snorts and it’s a horrible sound, helpless and angry. Matt’s used to being the cause for that kind of sound, he’s not proud of it, but it’s still true. Matt doesn’t like it, never wants Foggy to sound like that regardless of who’s responsible. “Gee and just when I was starting to think I was gonna be buying two mother’s day cards next year.” Foggy’s heart is a wild thing, trapped and snarling in self-defense.

“You didn’t say—when you said you had a meeting, you didn’t say—.” Matt says, turning the burner off completely. The roast smells good, rosemary and thyme and a red wine reduction. It’ll probably be just as good for breakfast tomorrow. Matt can make hash. “I would have gone with you if I’d known.”

“Nah, she probably would have tried to trap you under a laundry basket or a butterfly net or something and dragged you away to work for her soul-sucking mega firm.” Foggy’s voice is still too brittle to sell the joke but he’s already rounding the corner out of the hallway, and when he talks again, he’s facing the kitchen. “Oh shit. Did I forget our anniversary?” His heart speeds up, uneasy, and Matt turns towards him, hopes his face is reassuring when he says, “No, uh, not our anniversary.” He wracks his brain. He’s pretty sure their anniversary is in March. Or August. He can’t remember which date they finally decided to commemorate.

Foggy shifts on his feet. “Did you do something?” He sounds far too suspicious for a man coming in to a home cooked meal. “Are you guys facing off with the Avengers again? Is Captain America gonna show up at our door looking all disappointed?”

Matt scowls. “ _Once_. And he didn’t show up at our door.”

Foggy shrugs. “Our door, our roof, same difference.”

Foggy comes closer, pauses by the table. “The flowers are pretty.” He says mildly. Myrtle and blue thistle and larkspur and a handful of other flowers Matt’s never heard of before, but the florist kept saying they worked well together. Understated but impressive. (“We’re not really flower people.” Matt had confessed somewhat sheepishly, and she had chuckled good-naturedly, touched his arm and helped him navigate the cramped shop with all its dizzying aromas. “Looks like I’ve got my job cut out for me then.”)

“You know, no one’s ever gotten me flowers before.”

Matt curls his fingers into loose fists to keep from fiddling, suddenly nervous.

Foggy is silent. Matt wishes he knew what his face was doing. “Oh my God Matt. _Matt_ —wah—was this a _proposal_?”

Matt gapes, dumbstruck. Foggy’s heart beats in his ears almost as hard as Matt’s does. “What—?”

There’s the dull smack of Foggy’s hands covering his face, muffling his voice when he groans, “Shit did I ruin it? Should I come back in? _What do I do_ ”? He sounds almost frantic, “What do I do here?”

Matt snaps his mouth shut, strides purposefully towards Foggy, wills his heart calm and his voice steady when he says, “Foggy. Breathe.” He gently pries Foggy’s hands off his face, keeps his hands on Foggy’s elbows to anchor them both. “Did I ruin it?” Foggy asks, voice small and young and like nothing Matt’s heard before and his heart hurts, physically hurts, “I love you.” He says, and it isn’t at all how he’d planned it, but it doesn’t matter.

Foggy hiccups a laugh. “You sure about that? Because I think I’m still having a panic attack in the middle of your romantic gesture.”

Matt grins, fingers squeezing at Foggy’s elbows. “I’m positive. Don’t think I know anything else. I love you.”

“Oh. _Oh._ ”

Foggy lets his hands come to a rest on Matt’s upper arms, his fingers shaky. “Well, the feeling’s mutual buddy.” Matt beams.

-

“Wait.” Foggy says later, voice startling out of its earlier drowsiness, fingers stalling against the crown of Matt’s head. Matt listens the fuzzy echo of Foggy’s voice inside his body, head pillowed on Foggy’s stomach. Everything feels hazy and soft, peaceful. Matt keeps his eyes closed, nudges his head against Foggy’s hand to prompt him to keep scratching. “Hmm?”

“It’s just—uh, I love you. Too. I love you too.” His fingers resume their earlier task. “Just, so we’re on the same page here.” Matt nods against the soft give of Foggy’s belly, presses a kiss to the left of his navel.

“Good to know.”

The last remnants of tension leave Foggy’s body as he sinks a little heavier into the mattress. Matt should move soon, shuffle his way back up the bed before he falls asleep here and wakes up to Foggy kneeing him in the nose. Again.

He’s still trying to find the will power to carry himself up the bed when Foggy’s fingers pause again. “Hey Matty?” He asks, sleepy and slow.

“Yeah.”

“In the spirit of full disclosure: If you ever do, y’know, ask—I’m saying yes. You could ask me in court in the middle of closing statements and I would still say yes. So you don’t have to—it doesn’t have to be a thing or anything.”

“You telling me I shouldn’t expect flowers?” Matt jokes, propping himself up on his elbow and beginning to belly crawl upwards until he can rest his head next to Foggy’s on the pillow.

Foggy’s arm wiggles under his shoulders, wraps around until he can pull Matt closer. He leans his head close until their faces are practically touching, whispering like co-conspirators in the dark. “I’m telling you yes. Just so you know.”

Matt tilts forward, presses his mouth against Foggy’s. It’s too enthusiastic for any kind of precision, but Matt doesn’t care.

It’s perfect.


	6. knowing what the other is about to say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He puts the aspirin down next to Matt’s left hand before he asks for it, because Matt tends to reserve painkillers for special occasions. Like when internal organs are falling out of him or he’s broken every bone in his body falling off a roof. “Take them.” Foggy says, because if he makes it a question Matt will give him the world’s saddest grin and say he’s okay. They don’t have time for that today with their string of meetings set up for the afternoon. “Foggy—” Matt starts his counterargument but Foggy knows the script already, skips right to the part where he pulls a bottle of water out of his jacket pocket. He even improvises a little today, just to keep things exciting, twists the cap off before placing it in front of Matt.
> 
> "You look like shit.” Foggy adds for good measure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly real life and school have gotten in my way so I'm only just beginning s2 with little hope of making much progress before this weekend. So, you know, on the off chance you were going to leave a review laden with spoilers, please don't! I live a spoiler free life!
> 
> That said: I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to review. I know I'm super behind on replies but I just want to share my appreciation for each and everyone of you! I'm having so much fun writing these, I'm glad to know you're enjoying them. :-D

* * *

 

 

“And then the boy wonder over here fell off the curb—”

“Because it was slippery, not because I was drunk—”

“He was so drunk, Karen, it was _shameful_ —”

“Well, don’t forget the part where you threw yourself after me, Fog, it’s the best part of the story—”

“Leave no man behind, Murdock. Plus, chicks dig loyalty.”

Karen nods, still hiccupping with laughter behind her hand, “That’s true.”

-

Matt looks terrible. It’s a true accomplishment given the fact that Matt’s face isn’t really genetically predisposed to looking terrible, but there it is.

There’s a bruise at his temple, going yellow and green around the edges. It makes Foggy think of the texture of a mealy apple, leaves a bad taste in his mouth when he looks at it.

He puts the aspirin down next to Matt’s left hand before he asks for it, because Matt tends to reserve painkillers for special occasions. Like when internal organs are falling out of him or he’s broken every bone in his body falling off a roof. “Take them.” Foggy says, because if he makes it a question Matt will give him the world’s saddest grin and say he’s okay. They don’t have time for that today with their string of meetings set up for the afternoon. “Foggy—” Matt starts his counterargument but Foggy knows the script already, skips right to the part where he pulls a bottle of water out of his jacket pocket. He even improvises a little today, just to keep things exciting, twists the cap off before placing it in front of Matt.

“You look like shit.” Foggy adds for good measure.

He doesn’t follow the length of Matt’s neck as he throws back two aspirins and half the bottle of water, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he forces them down. Though the temptation is there.

“You do wonders for my self-esteem, pal.” Matt says, grin haggard when he points it in Foggy’s direction. Foggy doesn’t touch him, scared of the other injuries Matt’s probably hiding under his clothes, shoves his hands in his pockets to keep from patting Matt on the shoulder like he wants to.

“Oh spare me.” Foggy retorts, rocking back on his heels a little, “Without me your head would balloon to some even more outrageous proportion. And you don’t need any more forehead, Matty.”

Matt chuckles, grin softening into something smaller, less forced. “True. What would I do without you, Foggy?”

Foggy shrugs, shifts back to the flats of his feet, “Probably punch a lot more people in the face.”

-

“Is that—”

“Disgusting? Yes.”

“Well someone sounds like a grumpy Gus.” Foggy says, already holding his hands out for the white paper bag clutched in Matt’s grip. Matt passes it over as though it might explode in his grip if jostled.

“It’s bacon-maple cheesecake, Foggy.” Matt wrinkles his nose even as Foggy cheers at the sight of the pie waiting for him inside the bag. “It’s decadence taken to a gluttonous level of indulgence.”

Foggy rolls his eyes, prying the lid off the take out container keeping him from his afternoon snack. He’s pretty sure Matt’s more offended by the assault on his delicate sensibilities than he is by any kind of concern for Foggy’s immortal soul. He sticks a forkful of cheesecake in his mouth and does a little dance in his chair. If this is wrong, he does not want to be right.

Matt should be able to appreciate that.

He must on some level. For all his naysaying, he always brings Foggy a slice whenever the place near his apartment has it on their menu.

If that wasn’t enough of a tell, all it takes to call Matt’s bluff is one glance at Matt’s face, pink and pleased under a crooked grin, obviously listening to Foggy’s mini-concert of cheesecake induced happy sounds.

The _weirdo._

-

“Just say it.” Matt says, blinking up at the ceiling. He’s laid out on the couch because Foggy couldn’t get him any further, the bedroom might as well have been a million miles away when Foggy was dragging him down the roof access stairs, a deadweight in Foggy’s arms. Foggy doesn’t slam the glass of water down on the coffee table but it’s such a close thing that water sloshes up and splashes across the tabletop. Fuck. He mops at it with his sleeve.

“What am I supposed to say?” Foggy asks, voice flat to keep from breaking. He hates this feeling, like the world’s gone wobbly beneath his feet and is seconds away from caving in.

Matt sucks in a deep breath, face askance and eyes blank. Foggy wonders what he’s picking out of the silence. “You’re angry.”

“No shit Murdock. Tell me something we haven’t already established.”

Matt exhales, hard, and Foggy doesn’t know where to look. He can’t settle between his swollen face or his bloody chin or Claire’s tiny perfect stitches that’ll heal into another tidy scar on Matt’s skin. Foggy looks and he looks and he looks, but he might as well be the blind one because he feels like he’s not seeing Matt at all.

“You’re _really_ angry.” Matt says, ever the smartass, and Foggy wants to punch him. He wants to take Matt’s battered face in his hands carefully in the hope of recognizing it. He wants Matt to care that he almost died tonight, again, as much as Foggy does. He can’t move though; positive a single twitch will be enough to trigger an avalanche that’ll bury everything else under until there’s nothing left but ruins.

“Please Foggy, just say it.” Matt asks again, desperation in his voice and written across his face, and maybe there was a time when Foggy would have caved in like a house of cards, but now it just makes him grit his teeth, gnash down on the urge to make this better. If Matt’s looking to martyr himself he’ll have to go elsewhere, Foggy isn’t going to the rock he wrecks himself against tonight.

“If you already know—why the fuck should I bother Matty?” Why has he ever bothered? All his worries and supplications are completely useless, trampled underfoot by Matt’s apparent death wish. “You never listen.”

“Foggy…” Matt starts, and Foggy aches. He wants so badly to reach out, but he can’t be sure if it’s to strike or comfort. He shoves his damp sleeve up his forearm and crosses his arms over his chest. He wonders if that does anything to dampen the magnum opus his heart’s probably playing for Matt’s ears right now.

(“What’s heartbreak sound like?” Foggy asked once, right after Fisk had been put away, when everything was still fragile and new between them in a way it had never been before. He’d been drunk off half a bottle of unlabeled liquor purchased from Josie, slumped against Matt out on the rooftop, the city slowly falling into dusk around them. Matt had tipped his head back, thoughtful, mouth pensive and soft to look at, and Foggy’s heart had shaken just like it had in their dorm room at twenty-three, like it still did in their office at thirty. “You know how they say you fall in love?” Matt asked, syllables slurred around the edges, “It’s… it sounds like the splat that comes after. When you hit the concrete.” Foggy’s laughter had startled the pigeons from their roosts, and he’d leaned even further into Matt, breathless and warm, “Just like that? _Splat_.”)

“I listen.” Matt says, bleeding earnestness, so much so that Foggy doesn’t doubt for a moment that Matt believes what he’s saying. That only makes it worse.

-

“What’s with the face?” Foggy asks, coming to a standstill a foot away from Matt’s desk.

“What face?” Matt answers, still wearing The Face. It’s the face that convinced Foggy to walk away from a firm’s offer to save the world with this noble, furious idiot he’s committed himself to for life.

“Staff meeting!” Foggy calls rounding on the spot and trekking over to the conference room.

“What’s up?” Karen asks, pen stuck behind her ear. Foggy throws himself in the closest available chair. “Matt’s been hittin’ the Marshall.”

Karen’s shoulders fall, “ _Shit_.”

-

Foggy picks up a pear and holds it up to Matt’s face before he starts to whine about how Foggy’s picking up substandard fruit. Or worse, does something embarrassing like sniff Foggy’s fruit without even asking first. God forbid they make this weird, right?

Matt sniffs it delicately. He shakes his head. “Not that one.” He says and Foggy just nods, puts the pear back and reaches for another one. Repeats the process.

What’s normal but a matter of perspective.


	7. forehead touching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you look like?” Matt asks, curiosity winning out against his better judgement.
> 
> “Me?” Foggy asks at his side, boot nudging Matt’s ankle absentmindedly. “Oh you know, I’m a regular Fabio. Wait—do you remember Fabio?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter I was able to finally cross off a crucial Matt/Foggy moment on my life of Fanfiction Musts. Praise!

* * *

 

 

“What do you look like?” Matt asks, curiosity winning out against his better judgement. They’ve been roommates for months now, and friends for almost as long. Foggy makes it easy for forget things like common sense and logical restraint and all the other safeguards Matt’s always had in place to protect himself from strangers. And strangers from him. The thing is that Foggy doesn’t feel like a stranger. And maybe it’s the fading buzz of alcohol or the rush of laughter still tingling on his tongue, lying there on the cool, prickly grass outside as the city whirs on around them, but Matt wants to know.

He has some idea; from what he’s been able to glean on his own. Foggy’s long hair, the scrape of his facial hair when Foggy touches his own face, the bulk of his body when he moves through a space. Matt knows Foggy’s temperament, usually upbeat and typically cheerful, but by no means docile, whip smart and funny. Very funny.

“Me?” Foggy asks at his side, boot nudging Matt’s ankle absentmindedly. “Oh you know, I’m a regular Fabio. Wait—do you remember Fabio?”

Matt laughs, the sound of it swallowed up by the open sky overhead. Foggy had been making up constellations a minute ago, and while Matt sometimes has trouble remembering the New York City sky, he doubts the pollution, light and any other type, has decreased any. Definitely not enough for Foggy to star gaze in the middle of the city. “Yeah Foggy I remember Fabio.”

“Cool. Well that’s basically me. Except my shirts don’t billow as much and I’m scared of horses.”

Matt chuckles, tipping his head back. The city is loud, always, even in the dead of night but he grounds himself in the press of the earth beneath his back and Foggy’s fluttering pulse at his side. “Um, and maybe with less chest action going for me. Like I only have a four pack and my pecks are more of the cushion-y variety than chiseled stone.” Foggy’s heart is skittish inside his chest. Matt hums, likes the feel of the vibrations in his throat. “Hm. And your hair?”

Foggy sounds almost relieved when he answers, “Blonde. Pretty thick. Shoulder length, to the great derision of my grandmother since I was fourteen. My sisters still say I’m to blame for her heart attack. I maintain it was all her high sodium lifestyle.”

“What?” Matt’s smile stretches, trying to imagine what sort of mischief a teenage Foggy might have been causing. “What did you do?”

“Uh, there maybe was incident involving an ear piercing.”

Matt laughs but doesn’t add anything, knows Foggy will provide the rest of the details on his own. “Yeah, St. Andrew’s had this crazy strict dress code. Ugh you wouldn’t believe it Matty, we had to wear this ugly green plaid, and the sweaters _always_ itched, it didn’t matter how long you had it or how many times you washed it, it was made itchy. And they had random sock inspections to make sure we were up to snuff.”

“St. Andrew’s? That’s a Catholic school isn’t it?” He knows that it is. The sisters at St. Agnes had advocated on Matt’s behalf in the hopes he’d attend, but his foster family at the time hadn’t been interested in pursuing it. By the time he was placed with a family who was willing to listen Matt was already in tenth grade and not interested in jumping into a new environment and having to start from the bottom up again. He wonders if he would have met Foggy then if he had, if they would have been friends then, if Matt would have allowed it. “Yeah, they had some kind of sale; send two kids, the third one’s free. And I was lucky number three. Somedays I really think my mom only had me so she could make good on the deal. The woman loves a bargain.”

“How’d you sneak the earring and the hair in?”

“Yeah about that…” Foggy chuckles under his breath. “The student handbook only made a point about what type of jewelry was permitted. Your usual: crucifixes, crosses, saint medals, etcetera. No rings, no bracelets. No tongue, lip, or nose piercings. No more than one piercing per ear, and you better not even dream of wearing dangly earrings, those were clearly an affront to the Lord.”

Matt grins. “Guess they left out the part where they specified the who, huh?”

“Ding, ding, ding!” Foggy rings an imaginary bell overhead. “Give the man a prize! Basically I paid Ruth to stab me in the ear one weekend. And the rest, as we say, was history.”

“Do you still have the earring?” Matt asks, letting his head tip in Foggy’s direction.

“Shaking my head forlornly here.” Foggy says solemnly, grass whispering as he shakes his head. “Apparently you shouldn’t just let your sister shove a vending machine Hello Kitty stud through your ear without making sure you aren’t allergic to whatever it’s made out of.”

Matt winces. “My condolences.”

Foggy shrugs, “It was alright. Still wore it for, like, a week. On principle. And I think my mom felt so inspired by my bravery she even put up a fight when the school was trying to pressure me to cut my hair. That or I was a pawn in her decades’ long standoff with my grandmother.”

Foggy shifts, rises up on his elbows, “I have a pretty cool scar now though, on my earlobe, it feels like a little hill, raised in honor of my youthful rebellion.

“Yeah?” Matt asks, pushing himself up too, sitting up again after their sojourn on the lawn. Campus security will be sweeping by soon to shoo them away, but Matt wants to sit just a little while longer.

“Yep,” Foggy sits up the rest of the way, reaches for Matt’s hand and raises it, “Right…here, do you feel it?”

It’s small but pronounced enough that it’s probably visible just by looking, the small raised bump at the base of Foggy’s left ear lobe, pushing up under Matt’s finger like one dot in any of the constellations of braille letters. “Yeah.” Matt says, pressing the ball of his thumb to it a little more firmly, and Foggy’s heartbeat dips, rises, like its following the rhythm of a dance Matt doesn’t know the steps to.

“I have another one, a scar I mean, over here,” Foggy moves Matt’s fingers to his forehead, right at his hairline. “My sister pushed me off a swing.” Foggy supplies, “Luckily my face broke my fall.” Matt follows the length of it; it’s barely more than an inch long. “It must have bled a lot.” Matt says, remembers Dad coming home with his face red and swollen, how nicks and cuts scabbed and scarred across the terrain of his face. Somedays it feels like he remembers the map of those scars better than he does any other part of his father’s face. “Oh, totally. It was gross and deeply traumatizing. I got three whole stitches.”

Matt tries to control his grin, rein it in into something more presentable, and fails completely. “You ever let your sister live it down?”

“Of course not.”

Matt trails his fingers across the breadth of Foggy’s forehead following the uneven range of his hairline until he’s reached Foggy’s temple on the other side. “Do you think—um, could I, and I won’t if you don’t feel comfortable or it’s too weird—”

“You’re not gonna ask me to go steady, are you Matty? Because I don’t feel I’ve been sufficiently wooed yet.” Laughter wrinkles Foggy’s words, but Matt can’t ignore the uneven tempo of his pulse, flickering like the memory of dappled sunlight just beneath the skin of Foggy’s throat.

Matt laughs, “Not yet, promise.” He swallows. “Can I touch your face, it’s sort of—”

Foggy’s skin heats beneath Matt’s fingers. “Oh, um, yeah, man, go for it. Though,” Foggy says, leaning just a little bit closer, “I ask that you still respect me for my mind and not my beauty once you’ve put your feelers all over it.”

Matt grins through the nervous knot in his gut, places both his hands against the sides of Foggy’s face lightly. “You have my word, Mr. Nelson.”

Foggy’s breathing shivers in his chest as Matt’s fingers ghost down the sides of his face. His round cheeks, his shaggy beard, the jawline beneath it. His skin is a combination of smooth skin and dry patches around his eyes and nose. Matt traces the topography of Foggy’s face, his nose, his brow bone and the eyebrows that adorn the line of it. Foggy’s eyelashes tickle the pad of Matt’s thumb when it sweeps over his eye.

“What’s the verdict?” Foggy asks, the words warm against the top of Matt’s wrist when he speaks. Matt tries to ignore the sound of Foggy’s heartbeat, rabbit-quick and nervous, but he can practically feel it against his fingertips. Matt grins, “Definitely Fabio.”

Foggy’s laughter cracks some of the fizziness in the air between them, his face shifting beneath Matt’s palms as his cheeks round to allow for the smile that spreads across his lips. In that moment, Matt feels as though he’s holding his own beating heart in his hands.

It’s devastating to think of how easy it would be to close the distance between them. To tip forward, to angle their lips together just for a second and feel the shape of them with his own.

He doesn’t. “Thank you.” Matt says and lets his hands fall away from Foggy’s skin. He feels bereft at their emptiness.

Foggy swallows. “Any time buddy.” There’s a second’s silence, then Foggy’s rolling onto his feet. “C’mon Matt, lets hit the road.”

He offers Matt his hand and pulls him up.


	8. wearing each other's clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt’s right hand twitches on the door knob. Foggy imagines he’s calculating the risk of flinging himself out the living room window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers be warned herein lie some soft focus allusions to even more soft focus sexing. Oh yeah.

* * *

 

 

Foggy looks up at the sound of the bedroom door easing open, effectively losing his staring contest with the pancake refusing to bubble in the pan. The first one’s always a mess, Foggy thinks, and then stops. Because this is real life, and in real life breakfast food does not serve as a metaphor for one’s relationship drama. It just doesn’t, no matter how much the last few years of Foggy’s life have definitely felt like a drama.

Matt’s standing there. Of course Matt’s standing there, Foggy wasn’t exactly expecting anyone else. Foggy just isn’t sure he ever really expected Matt either. Matt with one hand still on the door knob like he’s possibly considering a quick retreat, seconds from slamming the door shut in order to buy himself enough time in which to escape. His hair is a mess and his eyes are visible since the suit doesn’t exactly have any pockets for his glasses. He’s shirtless because Matt’s been allergic to shirts whenever one isn’t strictly required for as long as Foggy’s known him, but he is wearing a pair of Foggy’s pajama pants (thin fleece ones his mother gave him years ago for Christmas. They’re covered in leaping reindeer outlines but Foggy wears them year round because he’s decided he can live eccentrically too without punching anyone’s teeth in).

Foggy averts his eyes back down at the pancake cooking in front of him to keep from thinking too long about the fact that Matt is wearing pajamas Foggy’s mother gave him and that he’s probably commando to boot. Unless he grabbed a pair of Foggy’s. That still wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing to occur in their boundary-blurring friendship, a true metric of all the things Foggy has had to endure in the name of loving Matt. (Really, the next time Matt goes to hang out with who it is whoever it is that provides him with his get up he should talk to them about incorporating enough space for him to wear a pair of underoos, at least. Foggy’s mom is always going on about wearing nice underwear just in case anything happens but he figures that can’t be too high on the priority list when you’re fighting crime and avoiding arrest on a nightly basis.)

Foggy pokes at the edge of the pancake with his spatula to check the other side though he knows it’s still too early to flip. Fucking bubbles. He resists the urge to crank up the heat. Mom always says you can’t rush a pancake.

Matt and Foggy might not be pancakes but they still prefer to take their time.

“Um, hey.” Foggy says, feeling about as smooth as a pineapple, “How you doing there buddy-boy?” His face feels hotter than the nonstick pan in front of him. _Buddy-boy?_ What was that even? This wasn’t a little league dugout. What next? Is he going to try ruffling Matt’s hair? Foggy barely restrains himself from slapping his own face with his buttered spatula.

Matt’s right hand twitches on the door knob. Foggy imagines he’s calculating the risk of flinging himself out the living room window.

“Uh.” Matt answers. The fingers of his left hand drum against his reindeer-clad thigh. “I’m good.”

(“You’re so good, Matty.” Foggy kissed into Matt’s sweat-damp temple, fingers stroking down the shivering length of Matt’s back. “You’re so, so good.” Matt nosed at the column of Foggy’s neck, breath ragged as he gasped Foggy’s name into his skin.)

Matt can probably taste Foggy’s blush in the air. Foggy forces his spatula under the pancake and flips it sloppily. A tidal wave of uncooked batter splatters up the side of the pan. The cooked side has browned unevenly into a kind of Rorschach blot that Foggy examines diligently while he waits for the other side to cook.

“Are you… making pancakes?” Matt asks, color rising in his own face. His eyes are pointed in the general of Foggy’s shoulder, and after another long minute of standing there not quite staring at each other, Foggy’s almost positive that Matt’s not going to flee the scene.

Foggy clears his throat. “Uh, yeah—I, uh, guess I woke up with a craving.” It’s better than saying he woke up very naked and twisted around an equally naked Matt and that making pancakes was a safer alternative than sticking around until Matt woke up. And talking.

(“I want you—” Matt whispered, fingers cold and still rain-damp against Foggy’s throat, “I always want you—” “Shut up Matty.” Foggy answered, swallowing against the fleeting impression of Matt’s touch skimming over his neck, kissing Matt to keep him from talking anymore while Matt’s other hand did clever things beneath the waistband of Foggy’s pajama pants. He kissed Matt and swallowed the overwhelming urge to let Matt know that Foggy was his, had been practically from day one.)

Foggy grits his teeth silently to keep off Matt’s radar, glares at the pancake for everything that’s wrong with his life. Isn’t everything supposed to get better after the unresolved sexual tension finally gets resolved? Foggy feels lied to by each and every one of the romance novels he ever borrowed off of his mother’s bookshelf. They all obviously needed an extra forty pages where the protagonists make awkward small talk after they’ve finally consummated their relationship. Foggy breathes through his nose down to his stomach, releases the air slowly as he unclenches his jaw. “You want chocolate chips in yours?” He asks at long last.

“Oh,” Matt blinks. He finally relinquishes his hold on the door knob. “Um—are you going to have some?”

Foggy scrapes the first pancake out of the pan and onto a waiting plate. It smells like burnt butter, too dark on the second side and still too light on the first. Typical first pancake crash and burn. “Of course not, mine is obviously the body of someone who denies themselves earthly delights like chocolate chip pancakes.” He says lightly, and that at least earns him a smile, however small.

Matt hadn’t seemed to mind Foggy’s body at all last night, not the soft give of his gut or the thickness of his thighs or his complete lack of chiseled pectorals. He’d run his hands over every inch of Foggy’s body, again and again, pressed his own body as close as he could, like he was trying to find some secret catch that would lock them together forever. Foggy hadn’t been much better, touching every part of Matt available to him—which was all of him—squeezed Matt’s biceps and stroked his back, marveled in the muscles that flexed and tensed beneath his roaming hands. When he’d finally cupped Matt’s ass, just like he’d always wanted to, Foggy had had the pleasure of swallowing Matt’s hungry laughter, nerve endings flayed open as Matt rutted against his thigh.

Matt edges closer, and Foggy stares, just a little, at the sight of Matt’s bare feet, pale and fragile looking as they traverse Foggy’s ugly secondhand carpet. They’re so at odds with the rest of Matt. His well-defined abs and thick corded arms and his strong shoulders, the intimidating landscape of scars and fading bruises mapped across every part of Matt on display. “You felt pretty delightful to me.” Matt says, still flushed pink, and Foggy’s heart is tapping out a secret message in Morse code for Matt’s ears only. _I love you I love you I love you. You idiot._

On the outside Foggy lets his head tip back, laughs from the bottom of his belly. “How was I ever under the impression that you had skills?” Foggy sniffs at the end of his laughing fit, reaching out for his pancake batter and pouring the next pancake into his pan. It sizzles, fills the air with the smell of batter and butter, bubbles slowly perforating the open face of the pancake. It’s easier somehow to reconcile this shy, kiss-bitten version of Matt with the man who fell into Foggy’s bed last night, sweating and shaking with adrenaline, to put the two of them together with the guy Foggy’s loved all along.

Matt’s grin widens, seems more at ease with every encroaching step into Foggy’s kitchen.

“Wanna make the coffee?” Foggy asks, and the tensions not gone but it’s different, feels less likely to crack them both in half at the first misstep.

Matt nods, “Everything in the same place?”

“You know it, pal.”

Matt moves around Foggy’s kitchen easily, filling the coffee machine like he has a hundred times before. Foggy sprinkles chocolate chips into the bubbling surface of the pancake before he flips it. The other side is a pleasant golden brown.

“Hey Foggy?” Matt’s voice comes from just over his shoulder, and Foggy turns towards it, finds himself completely accosted there in the middle of his kitchen. Their morning breath is rank but if Matt’s not complaining than Foggy sure as hell isn’t going to say a peep, leaning into the kiss and wrapping his arms around Matt’s shoulders.

The second pancake ends up in the trash too. Foggy can’t really be bothered though, happily accepting the mug of coffee Matt hands him and the kiss that accompanies it. Foggy pours the batter for the next one.

Third time’s the charm.


	9. accidentally getting too close and staring too long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Matt, c’mon, _please_. Your security friend is gonna be back and I don’t have another eighty bucks to pay him for extra gym time. Let’s get to the part where you show me how to unleash my inner Apollo Creed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm officially working off a second, equally important list of Matt/Foggy specific tropes and cliches y'all. What a life.
> 
> All of the stuff on wrapping your hands for boxing comes from this website: http://www.expertboxing.com/boxing-basics/how-to-box/how-to-wrap-your-hands

* * *

 

 

 

“Are you sure about this?” Matt asks again, standing still between Foggy’s spread knees. “Jesus Christ Murdock, would you stop dragging your feet already? I’m not changing my mind on this. Get to it or I’ll go find someone else to initiate me into your dark underground world.” Foggy’s voice is a jumble of exasperation, humor, and very real threat. He’s serious about finding someone else to do this with him. The thought alone raises Matt’s hackles. “If you’re sure.” He says again, though he’s already edging closer, Foggy’s knees spreading wider to make room for him between his legs.

“I’m officially rolling my eyes now Matt. Do I need to check the terms and agreements again? Prove I’m not a robot? I said I was sure. Just do it already.”

When Matt sighs it runs throughout every cell in his body. Foggy snorts, unimpressed. “I can’t believe _you’re_ actually disappointed in _me_ right now. It’s like the definition of throwing stones in glasshouses.”

“I’m not disappointed.” Matt says, and it’s even mostly true. He isn’t disappointed in Foggy—he’s never been disappointed in Foggy. Foggy isn’t the half of this partnership that screws everything up—he’s disappointed in himself. How can he claim to be a guardian of Hell’s Kitchen when he can’t even take care of the people who matter most to him? Karen hadn’t even come to him at all for this, choosing instead to ask Jessica for help.

(“Listen hornhead I need you to get your shit together because I am not interested in running a daycare.” Jessica had grumbled, shoulders hunched against the cold, before tossing out, “Trish says she’s got a hell of a right hook though, so y’know, my sympathies to anyone who decides to fuck with her.”)

Foggy had threatened to follow Karen’s lead when Matt had initially refused to teach him. And for all that Matt had teased Jessica about cherishing her newfound flock, ultimately this felt too much like something he owed Foggy for Matt to hold out indefinitely. After all, Matt is the reason Foggy needs to know how to defend himself. Matt should be the one who teaches him how.

“You’d sell that line better if you’d turn that frown upside down Matty.” Foggy cuffs Matt on the shoulder. He swings his legs a little so that they brush against the sides of Matt’s thighs as they kick forward and fall back against the base of the ring where Foggy taken a seat. “Matt, c’mon, _please_. Your security friend is gonna be back and I don’t have another eighty bucks to pay him for extra gym time. Let’s get to the part where you show me how to unleash my inner Apollo Creed.”

Matt huffs a short breath, it’s practically a laugh. “Calm down Foggy. First we’ve got to wrap your hands or you’ll break something your first punch out the gate.”

There’s a shift in Foggy’s face too minor for Matt to know it for what it is (he wishes he could, that he could use it to decipher the irregular measure of Foggy’s pulse rushing throughout his body and filling Matt’s ears). “Fine, fine, but if you try to tell me painting your fence is part of the learning curve I’m calling shenanigans.”

“Really? Not washing my car?”

Foggy chuckles. “One, you don’t have a car. Two, after the event with my aunt’s Volkswagen? I don’t think either of us is allowed near a car ever again.”

Matt smiles at the memory. Twenty-five and sitting behind the wheel of a car for first time in his life while Foggy painstakingly described every part of the process. In retrospect, Foggy had maybe not been the best choice of teacher seeing as he’d grown up in the city same as Matt and his opportunities to actually put his license to use had been only slight better. (“It’s a rite of passage Matty, you have to do this, at least once.” Foggy had been so painstakingly earnest that Matt had just laughed and accepted the keys Foggy pressed into his hands. “If I kill us we’re _only_ going to do this once.” Foggy had just clapped him on the shoulder, pushing him out the cabin door and into the quiet countryside air, full of buzzing insects and chirping birdsong and a gaggle of Nelsons down by the lake shore. “You’re not gonna kill us. You’re just driving us down the road. It’s a straight shot, totally level, no surprises. We’ll switch off before we reach any kind of traffic and I’ll get us the rest of the way to the store. Promise.”)

“How much longer is it before we’re finished paying off our debt.” Matt asks, reaching out and grabbing Foggy’s left hand.

“What’s this _our_ debt business? She pretty much thinks you’re some kind of benevolent angel who was fiendishly tricked into participating by her rakish nephew. I’m the one stuck cleaning her gutters for the rest of my natural life.” Foggy drops his head, redirects his attention from Matt’s face to their hands. “Okay now, enough stalling, walk me through this so I can do it next time.”

Matt’s hands know the movements, keep steady even as his heart trips over itself inside his chest. He slides the elastic loop over Foggy’s thumb, brings the handwrap down the back of Foggy’s hand. “You don’t want to go over your palm yet or they’ll loosen as you go. And you’ll hurt yourself.” Foggy nods. “Got it. Go around the back.”

Matt winds the wrap around Foggy’s wrist once, twice, three times, “This supports your wrist.” moves up to Foggy’s palm and does three more rounds before he draws it down and over Foggy’s thumb. “You’re gonna want to do three x’s through your fingers.” Matt says, tapping the back of Foggy’s hand so that he’ll splay his fingers. He pulls the wrap between Foggy’s fingers one by one, in neat, even loops. “This keeps your knuckles together and keeps them from breaking over each other.”

Foggy winces, “Ouch.”

“Yeah, it’s about as fun as it sounds.”

“You don’t do this when you go out. I mean, I’ve seen you in the suit, and you don’t—you don’t wrap your hands when you’re out daredeviling.” Foggy has pried the leather gloves off Matt’s swollen fingers and held ice packs to Matt’s aching hands.

Matt shrugs, “It’s different when I’m out there. It’s isn’t about landing the best punch I can, it’s—” _About letting the devil out_. “It’s just different.”

Foggy hums but doesn’t sound convinced. Matt locks Foggy’s thumb with the wrap, pulling it across Foggy’s palm to finish. He does the same to Foggy’s right hand, makes sure to repeat every step as he goes. Matt’s heart is a caged bird inside his ribcage the entire time.

“Your dad teach you how to do this part?” Foggy asks, his voice cautious in a way it only ever gets around the subject of Matt’s dad. Matt shakes his head, tests the wraps. “You know he didn’t want me to do…any of this.” If Dad saw Matt now how disappointed would he be? “But I used to watch him, whenever he brought me here. I was supposed to be doing homework over there,” He jerks his head at the corner where someone had once set up a table for him, “while he practiced but I’d always end up watching him. When he was in the ring, it was like he was someone else.”

Foggy’s hands flex in his, tighten into near perfect fist in Matt’s palms and suddenly, it’s like they’re not Foggy’s hands at all (Foggy’s hands are calloused and there’s a scar at the base of his right thumb from a mishap in his father’s shop when he was a kid. Foggy’s hand s are careful and kind and strong. Foggy’ s hands aren’t meant to be weapons. Foggy would have been the son Matt’s father wanted, using his head instead of brawn to make the world a fairer place).

“How are they? They shouldn’t be so tight they cut off circulation—”

“They’re good Matt. Stop fussing.”

Foggy taps his knuckles against Matt’s chest and Matt has barely managed a reluctant half step back when Foggy drops to his feet. Matt’s still holding Foggy’s right wrist, fingers rubbing against the course wraps he wound there. They dampen the beating of Foggy’s pulse beneath Matt’s fingertips. Suddenly Matt wants to pull them loose, wants to touch Foggy’s warm skin and feel his heart beat through his veins unhindered. Foggy takes a step forward but Matt doesn’t take one back, fingers still closed around Foggy’s wrist and at risk of never letting go. He can feel Foggy staring, for all the exasperation in his voice his breathing is patient, his heart still steady in his chest even if it feels miles removed in Matt’s hand. Matt pulls every ounce of his focus and concentrates on Foggy in front of him, the absence of his hair over his shoulders due to the fact that he’s pulled it back for their training, how he shifts on the balls of his feet, how he keeps his arm close and never once tries to pull his hand out of Matt’s grasp. One of them is going to have to move first and Matt isn’t strong enough for it to be him.

All his life has been a list of things Matt was and wasn’t supposed to do. He was supposed to use his head and not his fists, he was supposed be a soldier, he was supposed to keep Foggy safe from all the parts of Matt that would hurt him. Matt was never, not ever, going to allow himself to bring Foggy into this, not in any way, and especially not like this. And if that meant learning to ignore the parts of himself that still listened for Foggy’s heartbeat when Matt smiled at him, that gripped too tightly when they hugged, and longed after the idea of something he could never have, Matt told himself he would do it.

But Matt’s life up to this point has also been a series of rules he hasn’t followed. He’s selfish enough to wonder: What difference would one more broken rule make?

Today he lets Foggy take the responsibility from off his shoulders. Foggy clears his throat, steps to the side. “C’mon Matty, time to show me your moves.”

Matt swallows. Foggy’s wrist is still in his hand. Foggy moves and Matt follows.


	10. channeling the inner romcom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rough night?” Matt asks when Foggy finally drags himself into work. Karen beat him, though Foggy isn’t sure how as she was still nursing her first cup of coffee and speaking only in monosyllabic grunts when Foggy left her this morning, still dripping wet from his shower but in desperate need of a clean shirt before he could face the rest of the day.
> 
> Matt grins like he has a leg to stand on considering he’s holding himself almost as stiffly as Foggy, a bruise darkening the skin beneath his stubble on the left side of his jaw. Though it slips a little when he steps nearer, confusion flickering across his face. Foggy assumes that means he’s jostled something that didn’t need jostling, which serves him right for being an asshole. At her desk Karen makes a pained sound, head dropping forward into her hands with a dull smack. “Shhh.” She hisses in a whisper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As someone who watches a sickening amount of romcoms I'm ashamed of how difficult it was to write this.

* * *

 

 

The last thing Foggy expects is laughter.

If he were less sad or more sober he’d probably be angry or hurt but Karen’s laughter is such a happy sound, makes her go all pink in the cheeks and at her chin, so it’s hard to be either.

“Foggy—really?” she wheezes, tipping inelegantly to the side, sweats riding up her long legs, and Foggy figures she isn’t that much better off than him in the sobriety department. The empty bottle of bourbon on her coffee table certainly suggests as much. Foggy follows her lead and lets himself slump completely to the floor, her living room ceiling spinning lazily overhead.

“You wound me Ms. Page.” He says, or something close enough to it. It doesn’t really matter since Karen’s still laughing hysterically up on the couch.

-

He wakes up with the taste of regret thick on his tongue, head pounding and neck stiff from sleeping on the living room floor with only a sweater for a pillow. He hears the unmistakable sounds of vomiting echoing from the bathroom down the hall, and his head pounds sympathetically on Karen’s behalf. He tries to remember what they were talking about last night, but it’s hard to think when it feels like his stomach is trying to wiggle its way up out of his mouth.

He pulls the sweater out from under his head and presses it over his face. With any luck he’ll smother himself before last night’s Indian food reappears on Karen’s living room floor.

-

“Rough night?” Matt asks when Foggy finally drags himself into work. Karen beat him, though Foggy isn’t sure how as she was still nursing her first cup of coffee and speaking only in monosyllabic grunts when Foggy left her this morning, still dripping wet from his shower but in desperate need of a clean shirt before he could face the rest of the day.

Matt grins like he has a leg to stand on considering he’s holding himself almost as stiffly as Foggy, a bruise darkening the skin beneath his stubble on the left side of his jaw. Though it slips a little when he steps nearer, confusion flickering across his face. Foggy assumes that means he’s jostled something that didn’t need jostling, which serves him right for being an asshole. At her desk Karen makes a pained sound, head dropping forward into her hands with a dull smack. “Shhh.” She hisses in a whisper.

Foggy wholeheartedly agrees.

-

“Did you and Karen have a good time last night?” Matt asks Foggy hours later, after four aspirins, two coffees, the greasiest egg and cheddar sandwich Foggy could stomach, and his body weight in water.

Foggy doesn’t look up from the sugar he’s carefully stirring into his third cup of coffee today, misses the brief flicker of expectation that flashes across Matt’s features. His voice is decidedly less teasing than it was this morning and there’s the irritated part of Foggy that want to inform Matt that if he wants to know he’s welcome to join them the next time they hang out instead of slipping into his crime fighting onesie and getting the shit kicked out of him by low-lives. The part of Foggy that’s still trying to deal with the ramifications of consuming more bourbon than his liver was prepared to handle, agrees.

But there’s still a dull throb at his temples and he’s hungry and yet queasy at the same time, and Matt looks washed out in the weak yellow light of the kitchen, tired and weighed down by his own poor choices. The idea of picking a fight right now, while alluring, already requires more energy than Foggy has. Besides, it’ll keep until the next time Foggy’s annoyed by the three-ring circus their lives have devolved in to.

“Yeah, we did. Too much fun really.” If Foggy chooses to be a little petty and not disclose that that fun entailed drinking more than they should have in their pajamas while watching Korean dramas off Karen’s laptop, well, that’s between Foggy and his barber. Besides, it _had_ been fun, up until the part where—what had he even said? He wishes he could remember if only so he could repeat it and make Karen laugh like that again.

“Are you going to hang out some more tonight?” Matt asks lightly, shrugging with something that looks an awful lot like discomfort when Foggy finally looks at him. Matt’s toying with his mug handle, face creased with an absentminded worry Foggy doubts Matt knows is showing.

“Maybe. We haven’t really decided. You okay? Did something happen last night—”

Foggy catches the smallest widening of Matt’s eyes behind his glasses when he tilts his head just right, and Foggy can’t help but wonder if Matt means for him to catch it. He wants to know if that suspicion plays out in his heart, if Matt can hear it or smell it or taste it, if he can feel the cracks that run between them now as much as Foggy does whenever he lets himself think. “No, no—I mean, nothing you have to worry about, Fog. I’m okay, just, I’m just curious. About your plans. I just—You’ve been spending a lot of time together recently…but it’s good for you. For both of you. It’s good you have each other.” Matt’s not telling the whole truth, and it’s the funniest shit, how Matt can’t sell a lie to save his life (though he’s apparently always been able to lie well enough to get himself killed without Foggy even knowing it).

Matt fills his mug from the tap and heads back to his office before Foggy can ask him what exactly he means by that.

-

“Has Matt been acting funny to you?” Foggy asks that night. Karen and he are taking it easy tonight: comfort food from a local greasy spoon and Coke floats because Foggy’s never believed in saying no to the things that make life bearable.

Karen takes a break from spooning all the ice cream out of her glass to answer. “No more than usual.” She says with an indelicate shrug of her shoulder. There’s ice cream smudged at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes are slowly relaxing, the shadow of last winter slowly retreating. Claire had recommended a friend, in the same way Claire recommends professionals to deal with all their lives’ problems, and Foggy knows Karen’s been to see her a few times since she came forward about what went down with Fisk’s henchman. Foggy, who too clearly remembers Elena Cardenas in the city morgue, who remembers the assholes who attacked Karen in an alley and could have killed them both if Foggy and Karen hadn’t taken them by surprise, is just glad she’s talking to someone. (“We at Nelson and Murdock believe in fostering a judgment free work zone.” Foggy had reassured her months ago, bumping his shoulder against hers, “Y’know considering one of our partners is a horn-toting vigilante and the other one steals Splenda whenever he gets the chance.” Karen’s snort was watery and short, her eyes red-brimmed and bloodshot. “Not really on the same level Foggy.” “Yeah, I know. I cut in line too.”)

Studying Karen over ice cream, Foggy wishes Matt could understand all the ways it is possible to make the world a safer place by being with people instead of pushing them away. Foggy knows, even without Karen’s corroboration, that Matt’s been acting standoffish. Even by Matt standards. It’s been weeks since the last time he went out with them for a drink after work, and almost as long since he accepted any invitation to spend time with Karen and Foggy together. He’ll still show up at Foggy’s place some weekends just to shoot the shit, and Karen says he’s had lunch with her a few times while Foggy’s been out of the office. He’s not avoiding them outright but there’s clear deliberation in the time he does spend with them. Foggy would think it has something to do with Matt and Karen’s brief foray into the world of dating but they seem to have survived it entirely intact. Neither of them has told Foggy the specifics of why they decided not to pursue things but maybe Matt’s angling for a second chance. Maybe he thinks Foggy’s interested in Karen. Foggy smothers a soul-deep longing to sigh. Jesus. What a mess.

“You deserve a raise.” Foggy says and Karen grins, licking at the corner of her mouth. “Tell that to my boss would you.”

Foggy dips a fry in his float and stirs it. Karen makes a face but, unlike Matt, she doesn’t give him grief about it until he stops. “I’ll try, but I hear that Mr. Nelson is a real hard ass.”

-

“Hang out with us tonight.” Foggy says the next day, leaning in the doorway of Matt’s office. Foggy walked back to his apartment last night peering into alleyways and gazing up at rooftops, wondering all the while if he’d catch a glimpse of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

“Foggy.” Matt starts, leaning back in his chair, his voice placating, same as it always is when he turns Foggy down.

“C’mon Matty, one night. Just take one night off. Even Daredevil needs a break.” He needs Matt to come out with them. Partially because he needs Matt to understand that Foggy doesn’t have any intentions towards Karen. She’s beautiful and amazing and beyond incredible in every way, yes, but Foggy’s crush on her is exactly that. Consistent and nonintrusive to his daily life. He’ll wear a reminder of it in the form of the crooked scar that healed a pinkish-brown on his side until he dies. But it’ll never become anything more than what it is.

“The city doesn’t take breaks Foggy.” Matt answers and Foggy gives him points for not saying something worse like ‘crime never rests’, but not nearly enough points to make what he’s hearing tolerable. And that has nothing to do with clearing up the apparent misunderstanding between them and everything to do with Matt’s bullheaded disregard for himself.

“Maybe but you’re not a city or an idea or whatever abstract shit you want to come at me with. You’re a person Matt, you’re a real life human being. And that doesn’t change no matter how much you like to pretend otherwise. You need to take a break every now and again or you’re gonna burn yourself out. Or worse. And guess what, if you’re out of commission because you didn’t know when to say when, the city’s going to be on its own.”

Matt’s mouth contorts like Foggy’s forcing a lemon down his throat. “Foggy—”

“Whatever,” Foggy says, disproportionately irritated within the context of a single conversation but perfectly justified within the bigger picture of the last year. “Do whatever you’re gonna do. You always do anyhow.”

He pushes away from Matt’s door and stomps unsubtly back to his office. Karen’s not back from the city clerk’s office so Foggy gives into his most juvenile instincts and slams his office door behind him.

-

Matt doesn’t show up that night. But he sends Foggy a text message around ten-thirty, just before Foggy bids Karen adieu. It’s a blurry picture of Matt’s socked feet, out of focus and washed almost white with too much flash, but those are Matt’s feet, Foggy would recognize those socks anywhere. The next message is just a text, no more avant-garde photography, it reads: _Calling it an early night. Hope you guys had fun._

Foggy knows it doesn’t mean anything, that Matt could just as easily slip into his suit after sending Foggy the message as he could without saying anything at all. It’s just. Well. Matt’s never sent Foggy a picture before.

 _Sweet dreams pal._ He sends back, thumbing in an emoji because he knows Matt gets a kick out of hearing his screen reader announce them by name.

Foggy saves the picture to his phone.

-

Foggy’s already in bed and on the brink of sleep when he hears it. He doesn’t know what it is at first, the odd, rhythmic tap-tap-tap coming from his window. He thinks it must be a bird or a stray cat. He’s starting to wonder if people really cut into windows with those circle glass cutters you see in movies and why anyone with tools like that would be trying to break into his shitty shoebox apartment instead of a jewelry store or a museum when he hears it. “Foggy.”

That pretty much rules out pigeons and cats.

“Foggy.”

The list of people who could possibly be out on Foggy’s fire escape dwindles significantly. In fact, it narrows down to exactly one.

Sure enough Matt’s there when Foggy rushes over to his window. It’s still surprising to see Matt though. Matt and not Daredevil. He’s dressed in dark clothes but it’s not his Dread Pirate Roberts get up, not a mask in sight when he climbs through Foggy’s bedroom window. He’s not even wearing his glasses. “Uh—shouldn’t you be wearing a mask?” Foggy asks, feeling stupid as he glances out his window and prays to God no one’s at their window smoking. Or that if anyone is seeing this they’ll just assume Foggy’s place is getting broken into by someone who doesn’t moonlight as a fucking crime fighter.

“What—oh, uh, I didn’t—guess I was in a rush.”

“I thought you were turning in.” Foggy says, mind racing with all the possible things Matt could be up to at this not entirely late hour. Did something happen to the suit? Is Matt on the run? Foggy strains his ears for an approaching stampede of cop cars or SWAT boots racing out of the elevator, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Just the normal nocturnal traffic of Hell’s Kitchen after dark.

Matt pushes the hood of his sweater off his head, and Foggy can’t see any gaping wounds, just Matt’s eyes, peering determinedly in Foggy’s direction, somewhere just left of his ear. “I couldn’t sleep. I wanted—I had to tell you something.”

“Are you hurt?” Foggy asks, reaching out to touch Matt and make sure he isn’t hiding something bad, or being held together by duct tape, but Matt grabs Foggy’s hands in an unfair display of his ninja reflexes before Foggy can touch him. Matt’s hands are clammy and his grip tight around Foggy’s fingers. “No, I’m fine. I—I didn’t go out tonight, I—I just needed to tell you something and I couldn’t wait until morning, Foggy—”

Foggy looks down at their linked hands and mouths wordlessly, a hundred questions jostling for the tip of his tongue but none of them actually going first. “You could have called—”

Matt looks honest to God gobsmacked, like it hadn’t occurred to him to dial Foggy’s number and call him on the little wonder device known as a cellphone like any sane human being. Maybe Matt took a blow to the head he can’t remember right now. Fuck, Foggy thinks peering into Matt’s face, is he concussed? He wishes the lighting was better so he could check Matt’s eyes. He’s about to propose they move this little get-together to a better lit area of the bedroom but Matt seems to premediate the question, tightens his grip on Foggy’s hands. “I’m sorry—I just—I knew—I know that if I wait I’ll talk myself out of it and you asked me not to keep secrets from you and I’m trying Foggy, I am, I know it doesn’t seem like it but I am—”

“Matt,” Foggy interjects, twisting his hands in Matt’s iron grip to grab hold of his hands too. “breath buddy. You’re turning blue.”

Matt’s mouth snaps shut. He drags a deep breath in.

“I’m not a good person.” Matt says, and Foggy reels back because he’s not here for the Matt Murdock’s Self-Depreciation Variety Show. He’s seen it before and it gets old fast whenever Matt uses it as justification whenever he’s going to do something he knows is wrong. Something about how the city needs him to be this person, how his crazy grandmother told him he had the devil inside him, how Foggy can’t understand what Matt does but Matt needs Foggy to trust him. As if Foggy’s ever done anything _but_ when Matt knew all along every reason Foggy shouldn’t do just that. He tries to pull his hands free but Matt’s grip holds, his fingers shake. “No, I—I’m not a good person. But you…you are. You and Karen are good people. And if you make each other happy than I’m happy too Foggy. You two, you deserve good things and you’re each the best thing the other could hope for. And I just wanted to tell you that.”

Foggy blinks.

He blinks for what feels like a very long time.

“You scaled the side of my building in the middle of the night to…give me your blessing?” Foggy says, feelings the words out slowly like that’ll somehow make them make sense.

Matt nods, eyes bordering on frantic. “I wanted you to know it was okay.”

“For me and Karen to…”

“Be together.”

“Like…”

“You are.”

Foggy blinks some more. It’s like Matt’s speaking a language he assumes Foggy’s fluent in and Foggy doesn’t even have Google translate at his disposal to make sense of it.

“We’re not.” He offers weakly, at a loss of anything else to say. Now it’s Matt’s turn to blink. “What?”

“Karen and I, we’re not together. In any way. We’re not—like that.”

Matt’s brow creases with confusion. “What?” He repeats, grips loosening on Foggy’s hands incrementally but Foggy doesn’t try to pull his hands away just yet.

“Why would you—”

“You started—you spent the night. You smelled like her shampoo when you came into the office and she smelled like your drier sheets once and you’ve been spending so much time together alone. You make her laugh and she calls you handsome and you flirt, _all the time_ whenever I’m not in the room and sometimes even when I am and—you’re not?”

Foggy hangs his head and wonders what he did in a past life to get him to this point. “Dude, we’ve talked about this. Evidence you collect via super senses is not admissible in court. You can’t just sniff and eavesdrop your way to a conclusion without asking a single question to make sure you’re on the right track. At the very least.”

Matt’s mouth opens and closes a few more times. “But your heart,” He says, like he’s finally got the one piece of evidence Foggy can’t disprove. “Your heart’s different when you’re together.”

Foggy raises an eyebrow but doesn’t bother narrating it. They’ve got so much else on their plate right now. “Different _from what_ exactly?”

“Different from how it sounds around…” Matt trails off, going from pink to a darker shade of crimson, blood rushing across his face and around the shell of his ears.

 _Oh._ Foggy pulls his hands out of Matt’s slackened grip. This time Matt lets him go.

Oh God. Foggy sort of thought this was on some kind of don’t ask, don’t tell list. Foggy had really hoped Matt would do him the favor of ignoring this subject for the rest of their lives together.

“Well you don’t have to worry about that buddy,” Foggy says uneasily, wiping his hands on his sweatpants. When had they gotten so sweaty? “I promise. I’m not really a glutton for punishment, so y’know, no more unrequited romances for me.” He tries to lift his voice in a chuckle, but he can’t really commit to it. Matt’s face sort of unfolds right before Foggy’s eyes, eyebrows raising and mouth rounding into a soft ‘O’. Frankly, he looks ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as Foggy feels.

“Right, uh, it’s getting late and tomorrow’s gonna be packed so I’m going to bed and you can…take the couch or the door or the roof, just be careful and um, I’ll see you tomorrow at the—”

Matt’s mouth slams against his without anything approaching grace or gentleness. His teeth clack against Foggy’s, his nose crashes forcefully with Foggy’s face. As far as kisses go it feels more like a full facial assault, teeth and lips and blood rushing hot to the surface of his skin as Matt kisses him like his life depends on it. Foggy goes a little weak in the knee but it’s hard to say if it’s from the kiss itself or the sheer lack of oxygen.

When Matt finally slows and pulls back Foggy’s lips are tingling and his face is overly warm and Foggy takes a short second to collect himself before choking out, “Huh, I never really thought of that as a pick up line.”

Matt looks a bit like he’s coming out a daze and Foggy almost can’t blame him, he certainly knows the feeling. “I thought—when everything happened with Fisk—I was sure you—that we—that you weren’t interested in that—”

Foggy reaches up and takes Matt’s animated face in his hands, smooths his thumbs around his mouth and whispers, “Shhhh.”

One day Foggy is going to find out what or who made Matt so sure he was so easy to leave behind, and when he does Foggy’s going to be ready to knock a few heads together to remedy it, Matt’s included.

“Matt Murdock I acknowledge that you were essentially raised by feral New York raccoons and that is the reason why you think you can predict people’s every thought from their sweat or some such shit. But I’m telling you right now, if you ever want to know how I feel you just need to fucking ask me and I will gladly tell you. Any subject. I will let you know where I stand. Do you understand me?”

Matt nods slowly, face still grasped in Foggy’s hands.

“Foggy,” Matt starts, cautious and hopeful, “how do you feel? About us?”

Foggy strokes his thumb along the deep-set curve of Matt’s bottom lip. Then he answers.

-

This time Foggy expects the laughter.

Karen is almost doubled over at her desk, blonde hair falling in a smooth golden curtain around her face. When she snorts it’s a wonderfully unrefined sound. “Okay, wait,” she gasps, fingers splayed over her smile as though to contain it, “Go back to the part where he thought we were dating.”

Matt is leaning in the doorway of his office, scowling and pink-eared, but he’s never been much of an actor, and Foggy doesn’t miss the ghost of a smile haunting the corners of his mouth whenever he looks Matt’s way.

“Oh, sure, that’s my favorite part.” Foggy says and starts from the beginning.


	11. now or never kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The city is burning and there’s no time, not for this, not for anything. Matt’s number is up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a short one but I had to show some restraint before this turned into [Now or Never Kiss](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NowOrNeverKiss) with a side of [Pre-Climax Climax](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PreClimaxClimax).

* * *

 

 

 

Foggy sniffs, and Matt knows he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s crying. Matt wants to tell him not to. Not to cry. Not to hide it. Matt wants to say, ‘Everything is going to be okay.’

Matt wants and wants but outside the walls of this one room the city is burning, tearing itself to pieces and there isn’t time for all the things Matt wants. “You’re such a fucking idiot.” Foggy says, wiping his hand across his face, but there’s no dispelling the salt in the air, the worried tick of his heart pounding in Matt’s ears and keeping time with his own.

“I know.” Matt says, mouth twisting into something that he hopes resembles a grin, but its mirthless and grim. There’s no time. Matt’s used it all up already. “I’m sorry.” There’s too much adrenaline in his body to leave any room for tears. It’s the only thing keeping him upright, blotting out the pain of prior injuries—his recently dislocated shoulder and cracked ribs, the stitches in his thigh he’ll undoubtedly tear, the dizzying vertigo that still sweeps over him when he least needs it—but Matt’s not foolish enough to hope it’ll carry him to the end of this night.

He always knew though, didn’t he? There was always going to be a fight he couldn’t hope to come back from.

Foggy laughs. It’s a hopeless sound, scraped raw and chipped all over. Matt hates it as much as he hates being the reason for it. He prays, fervently and to every saint who will plead on his behalf, that Foggy will forgive him this, that he’ll piece his life together again in the wake of all the mayhem Matt’s brought into it.

“Don’t—Matty,” Foggy swallows, the sound of it hitches in his chest right over his fluttering heart. “I don’t need you to be sorry. Just come back. Promise you’re coming back.”

The city is burning and there’s no time, not for this, not for anything. Matt’s number is up.

He reaches out, and Foggy catches his arm, grip hard around Matt’s forearm. “Foggy—I _am_ sorry.” Matt says, softly so that the rest of the world doesn’t hear, doesn’t notice the time Matt’s trying to steal. His feet move of their own accord, bring him to a stop as close to Foggy as he can be. Foggy flinches at the first touch of Matt’s gloved hand on his cheek, but he leans forward, rests his forehead against Matt’s. “I wish…” Matt says, grinding his forehead against Foggy’s, touching the side of his face, dragging his fingers along Foggy’s jaw, down the nape of his neck, pausing briefly at the shuddering pulse kept safe beneath Foggy’s thin skin. He touches Foggy’s hair and wishes he could feel it, but there’s no time now, none at all and Matt’s wishes have never counted for much. “Me too.” Foggy whispers and Matt doesn’t ask if they’re wishing for the same thing. Foggy’s face shifts against his and the taste of salt spreads across Matt’s tongue when he sucks a breath in. Foggy’s face grows damp against Matt’s skin, and this is it, this is what Matt was always so scared of. Loving Foggy was always going to hurt them both.

The city is burning and Foggy is crying and Matt hurts, in every way a person can hurt. He can’t make this better.

But he can brush his lips over Foggy’s cheek, he can find the soft corner of his mouth and press their lips together in a kiss he’s been keeping safe for more than a decade. It’s the only thing he can think to give Foggy now, the last secret Matt’s kept from him.

Foggy’s breathing shudders out of him, tremors shivering throughout his body, but his lips part against Matt’s and his hands seek purchase on Matt’s shoulders, his sides, his waist. His hands squeeze like he can hold on to this moment if he only holds on to Matt and Matt kisses him harder in the hope he’ll succeed.

But the city is waiting and Matt’s stolen more than he’s ever deserved. “I’m sorry.” He says again, pressing one last kiss to Foggy’s warm mouth. He wants to brand the memory of it into his skin.

Foggy’s hands tighten, his fingers dig into the unyielding surface of the suit. “Please just _try_.” Desperation weighs down every syllable.

Matt nods, forcing his feet to move, to carry him away.

He listens to Foggy’s thundering heart for as long as he can until the roar of the city drowns it out.

-

The city survives and so does he.

Floods, blizzards, fires, wars. The city’s survived it all. Matt forgets that sometimes, blinded by the overwhelming need to make things better. This city’s survived so much before Matt was ever a part of it, and chances are it’ll stand long after he’s gone.

The work will never be done.

But for tonight he’s willing to allow himself this much, sitting out on the rooftop with Foggy beside him, Foggy’s arm a reassuring weight around Matt’s waist. Matt’s splinted fingers hinder his ability to take Foggy’s hand for now, but he can still lean into the solid support Foggy offers with his body and rest his head against the top of Foggy’s.

“What do you hear?” Foggy asks, staring out at the city they’ve called home all their lives.

Matt listens—Matt is always listening—and what he hears, beneath the traffic and chatter of a hundred living souls, the footsteps and bustle of daily lives being carried out, is the reassuring one-two rhythm of Foggy’s heartbeat. His breathing whooshing in and out. The shift of his hair on the evening breeze, the glide of his fingers at Matt’s hip, over the soft material of Matt’s sweatpants.

Matt searches for the words to describe it all, the universe Foggy carries inside him and how Matt orients everything else around it, how Matt’s life has always existed in orbit of something, and for years now it’s cycled around this. Their city. And Foggy. How some days they feel like one in the same.

“Everything.” Matt answers and Foggy’s replying laughter is a magnificent sound, ringing out into the open air, deep-welled and as radiant as Matt’s memory of sunlight streaming through stained glass.

“You’re such a dork.” Foggy says affectionately.

Matt smiles. The city keeps watch over them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all!
> 
> Again, super thankful to all of you who are reading this and apologies for spamming you with these updates. 
> 
> I finally figured out how to keep the end note from the first chapter from repeating on every chapter. DD S2 update I just finished episode 3 (wow, holy stairwell fight Batman!), and I am eagerly looking forward to the next. After church hopefully. No better way to celebrate Easter than to watch a sad Catholic ninja work his issues out on someone else's face. 
> 
> I'm still over on [ tumblr](http://the-space-narwhal.tumblr.com) if you'd like to come say hi. I'll be more active over there once I'm done with S2, but for now I'm laying low to avoid spoilers.


	12. height differences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first words out of Matt’s mouth when she opens the door for Foggy are: “You’re wearing heels.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws confetti in the air* I finally wrote them as girls!

* * *

 

 

 

The first words out of Matt’s mouth when she opens the door for Foggy are: “You’re wearing heels.”

Foggy glances down at her shoes. They’re not new. She’s definitely worn them around Matt a hundred times by now at L&Z and whenever they have to go to court as well as any other occasion where they have to pretend they’re legitimate adults. They’re the only pair of heels Foggy wears with any kind of consistency. They’re not much to look at, plain black faux leather, almond-toed, fitted with an utterly sensible heel. Marci calls them Foggy’s ‘stereotypical lesbian’ shoes, which Foggy takes offense to on the grounds that she explained bisexuality to Marci at least a dozen times while they were actually together and because Foggy owns an actual pair of Birkenstocks that Marci has seen on multiple occasions and has strictly forbidden her to wear in her presence ever again. As far as heels go they’re not really anything to write home about maybe, but Karen called them cute the first time she saw them. Coming from Karen, who in addition to being the most presentable facet of their rinky-dink operation is also a golden goddess in her own right, it’s the only seal of approval Foggy needs.

Now though, looking at Matt in a pair of leggings and an oversized sweater that hangs down over her thighs, Foggy can’t help but feel a little overdressed. “I thought we were going out.” Foggy answers, trying not to sound defensive as she stares at Matt’s bare feet and the chipped red nail polish on her toes. Matt doesn’t bother with manicures as a rule but Foggy can sometimes talk her into letting her paint her toes. It’s a holdover from their days as roommates that Foggy honestly enjoys having now that so many other things have changed. That and there’s something soothing to the careful task of applying nail polish with a tiny brush. Nowadays she’s not above using it as an excuse to sit out on the fire escape with Matt and a bottle of beer and ask a dozen questions while Matt has nowhere to go. It’s as close to couple’s counseling as they’re probably ever going to get.

“We are.” Matt says it with a small smile, stepping back to let Foggy in. “It’s just you usually don’t dress up for Josie’s.”

“What makes you think I’m dressed up?” Foggy shoots back, trying to keep the blood from rushing to her face by sheer willpower alone. “Maybe I’m wearing my Captain America pajamas and I just decided to throw on the heels to throw you off your game.”

Matt’s smile deepens and Foggy’s heart flutters traitorously in her chest. She wonders vaguely if it’s too late to text Karen and reschedule, because honestly there are so many other things she can think to do right now than go get drunk on mystery liquor. Foggy loves Karen, she is a godsend in every way, one that Foggy and by extension Matt will spend the rest of their natural lives trying to repay the universe for. But Foggy _misses_ Matt with a gut-deep yearning she should probably be more ashamed of. She’ll be thirty-four this year and surely too old to be this far gone on a girl she’s known for nearly a decade. But Matt makes it so easy to feel like this—Mattie is horrible contradiction that way, makes feelings easy and impossible to decipher at the same time, it’s what made their friendship so frustrating for so many years, even before the Daredevil of it all.

Matt reaches towards her, fingers light as they trail over Foggy’s shoulder and trace the neckline of her top. Foggy sends a silent thank you to Marci wherever she may be right now, for bullying her into buying it weeks ago. (“Your boobs looks great Foggybear, it really makes me miss them.” “Wow, a true compliment if ever I heard one.” ) Matt hums appreciatively at the feel of the material under her hand, makes it well worth the extra bucks Foggy spent on it when Matt hooks her fingers just barely into the neckline while her other hand comes up to rest at Foggy’s hip. “Well, if that was your goal you’ve definitely succeeded.”

Foggy laughs, a little breathless already, lets Matt walk them backwards until Matt’s pressed between Foggy and the hallway wall opposite the door. “Guess that means you better step it up tonight Mattie or it might be the night I leave you for someone rich enough to pay off my student loans.”

Matt wrinkles her nose, drapes her arms over Foggy’s shoulders, pulling her even closer. “Can you at least hold out for someone rich enough to pay off our office bills too?”

Foggy shrugs, likes the weight of Matt’s arms rolling with the motion and her fingers twisting lazily in Foggy’s hair, lets her own hands come to rest on Matt’s waist. “For you Murdock? I’ll see what I can do.”

“As always Ms. Nelson, I appreciate your efforts.” Matt says, tipping her face upwards. Foggy kneads Matt’s hips gently, takes a second to study the familiar planes of Matt’s face.

Matt’s beautiful and Foggy never forgets it but it still sort of takes her by surprise sometimes. Matt’s always beautiful of course, what with the pouty mouth and the brown eyes and the cheekbones and the strong, compact muscle that makes up her body. But there’s something more to her in moments like this, when it’s just the two of them in private, when Matt seems so completely at ease inside her own skin, her smile spread so wide it creases the corners of her eyes and erases months, if not years, of weariness. “With a sweet talker like you Mattie, how could anyone ever compare.” Foggy says, watching that smile grow even wider, the dimple at the left side of her mouth deepening. Foggy gives into the ever present urge to kiss her, giddiness sparking like electricity on her lips when they touch that dimple and Matt’s warm cheek.

Matt makes a happy sound at the back of her throat, her arms tightening around Foggy’s neck as she turns her head, tilting until the angle’s right and she can press upward into a proper kiss.

It’s always astounding how a few inches can change the composition of something as familiar as a kiss. It changes their balance, Foggy bearing down while Matt leans upward, supporting her weight between Foggy and the wall with her heels raised slightly off the floor. Foggy feels as though she’s teetering on the edge of a chasm, wobbly-kneed and lightheaded, Matt’s hands clutching at her back and her thigh pressing just barely between Foggy’s legs and fuck it, Foggy thinks, sucking in a ragged breath and tightening her grip on Matt’s waist in order to hold her more securely to the wall. She’s sending that text. Matt makes a breathless sound when Foggy pins her more securely against the wall, and when Foggy pulls away she’s flushed pink, Foggy’s attempt at lipstick smeared around her mouth, iridescent and slightly darker than the blood warming Matt’s face. She looks dazed and pleased, the way she gets after Foggy tells her she’s not allowed to move her hands while Foggy goes down on her. Yeah, Foggy’ll buy Karen coffee for the rest of the month to make up for bailing on her.

“I should—uh,” Mattie clears her throat, and Foggy can’t ignore the blush that’s already creeping down her throat, disappearing under the neck of her sweater. “I should probably get ready.”

“Yeah,” Foggy says, fingers reaching for the hem of Matt’s sweater and pulling it up, gazing appreciatively at her abs and her waist and—oh Jesus, Matt’s not even wearing a bra.

“Okay, real talk buddy.” Foggy starts, pulling the sweater up and off Matt’s body, tossing it to the side. “Were we ever gonna make it out the door tonight or was this just some sort of elaborate booty call? Because I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times Mattie: I’m always game, so you can forget your prudish Catholic sensibilities.”

Matt laughs, eyes bright and hair fizzy with static from her sweater but her fingers are already making quick work of the buttons on Foggy’s blouse. “We both know I forgot those a long time ago.”

Foggy pushes at the waistband of Matt’s leggings. “You’re avoiding the question counsellor.”

Matt’s grin sharpens into something cunning. “I texted Karen our apologizes fifteen minutes before you got here. She demands coffee for the next two months.”

Foggy laughs so hard it probably ruins any attempt at sexiness on her part as she begins dropping to her knees. She takes a second to kick her shoes off and leaves them lying on the hallway floor. “Deal.” Foggy answers without hesitation, taking just long enough to strip Matt’s leggings and underwear off her left leg so that Foggy can lift it on her shoulder.

Matt’s head hits the wall with a hollow thunk. When she says Foggy’s name it’s with the kind of reverence better preserved for a church, palm resting at the crown of Foggy’s hair, fingers stroking so gently that something soft and unguarded trembles in Foggy’s chest. Thirty-four and so far gone Foggy doesn’t know the way back. Matt says her name again and Foggy couldn’t care any less.

Fuck, Foggy decides then and there, she will buy Karen coffee for the rest of the year.


	13. defending eachother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy nods, clears his throat. His voice, when it comes, is too cheerful, his happiness flimsy and peeling along the edges. “You know every time I think I could not like her any less she goes and proves me wrong. So, y’know, props for that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Technically, this can be read as taking place in the same universe as chapter 5. Not that it has any bearings on the actual chapter.

* * *

 

 

 

Matt listens to the retreating _clack_ of Rosalind’s shoes, follows it out the front door until it gets lost among the foot traffic out on the street. To his left Foggy’s heart beats hard, pheromones rising in the air as his temperature elevates slightly. Nerves. Foggy holds himself perfectly still, hands folded on the table in front of them, swallowing again and again. On his right, Karen taps her pen against her notepad, jabs the ballpoint tip into the paper three times, so hard she leaves a blot behind on the page that bleeds onto the next. “She’s a piece of work.” Karen says, voice stilted and pinched like she’s holding something back (Karen’s anger seeps into Matt’s own, scalds him down to his bones). Foggy nods, clears his throat. His voice, when it comes, is too cheerful, his happiness flimsy and peeling along the edges. “You know every time I think I could not like her any less she goes and proves me wrong. So, y’know, props for that.”

-

“I can’t believe that woman is related to Foggy.” Karen says later, whiskey on her breath and frustration still muddling her words. Foggy’s at the counter ordering another round, but Josie’s is crowded tonight with people looking to start their weekend with a gusto so he’ll be a while still, but Matt keeps careful track of Foggy’s impending return as he leans towards Karen. “He doesn’t really talk about it.”

Karen snorts. “Wow, I can’t imagine why.”

The alcohol is already settling into a numbing buzz at the back of his head but it doesn’t matter, he wasn’t planning on going out tonight anyhow. “She never sticks around long but when she shows up…” Matt shrugs.

“It’s a shit show?” Karen offers, and Matt gives her his best approximation of a grin. “Pretty much.”

Karen sighs and Matt hears her finish the last of her drink, the crunch of an ice cube as she bites down on it. Matt doesn’t have to ask what’s on her mind; they’ve known each other long enough now to know to tread carefully through the minefield of parental relationships. “I thought the whole point of being an adult was not having to deal with the things you couldn’t escape as a kid.” Karen says finally, voice bordering on vicious and Matt opens his mouth, is on the cusp of telling her that’s a modern myth, that you never shed the past; it just grows with you, like scar tissue.

“You guys done talking about me yet or should I go get us chasers?” Foggy asks before Matt can get any of it out, setting three glasses down on the table in a sloppy mess of spilled liquor and clanking glassware.

Karen’s hair swings against the back of her blouse when she shakes her head. “It’s just—Foggy, _how_?”

“Well Kare,” Foggy starts, settling into his seat, elbows leaning heavily onto the table top. “Sometimes a man and a woman love each other but then the stork brings them a special surprise and the woman decides that baby doesn’t really fit into her life plan so she files for divorce and seeks absolutely zero contact until one day that baby’s law firm gets mentioned on the front page of the Bugle and then suddenly bam! There she is.” Foggy exhales hard, takes a long drink from his glass. “Sorry. I—I’m being a dick.” Foggy says, sounding sincerely apologetic and well on his way to drunk. “Didn’t mean to bring us down guys...Let’s talk about something else. Any bets on our new neighbors? I’m hoping for another underground casino.”

The decidedly morose note in the air doesn’t dissipate despite Foggy’s effort. Matt does not think about Stick or his mother’s back as she walked out the door or his father’s bloody face in his hands. “We forgot to toast.” He says, raising his glass. His throat feels dry when he says, “To shitty parents.”

“To not being them.” Karen adds lifting her glass next to Matt’s. Foggy’s shoulders tremble but he lifts his glass too, even if it chimes mostly empty when he taps it against theirs. “Here, fucking, here.”

-

They walk Karen home, shoulders bumping together. Matt keeps one hand on Karen’s elbow and Karen loops one arm through Foggy’s as they plod their way down the city streets. Afterward Matt takes Foggy’s arm in hand and leads them home. “I don’t live here.” Foggy says faintly, like he’s only just realized where they are when Matt stops them at the front door in order to dig his keys out. Foggy’s head is heavy against Matt’s shoulder when he slumps into Matt’s back. “And whose fault is that?” Matt replies, uncomfortable with this laconic Foggy who doesn’t attempt to fill the quiet space that exists after the question. Instead, Foggy only seems to get heavier. Matt pictures tonight’s melancholy turning to lead in his bones though he knows realistically that it’s really just the alcohol.

Inside there’s no need for pretense, so Matt takes Foggy by the hand and carefully leads them both to the bedroom. Foggy stays quiet and pliant the entire time Matt undresses him, falls into bed without looking for anything else to sleep in. Matt follows his lead, strips to his underwear and crawls across the mattress on hands and knees, stretches out next to Foggy without another word and pulls the blankets up around them.

Beside him Foggy is too warm, skin sour with sweat and muscles tense despite his earlier lethargy. Matt wonders what he’s allowed to say right now. Foggy isn’t interested in him dragging Rosalind’s name through the mud or having Matt coddle him. Karen said once that they’re partnership works because they complimented one another, balanced each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Maybe Matt’s strength is only in hurting and being hurt, in throwing his fists and making others regret the wrongs they’ve committed. Maybe he wasn’t made with the parts of person capable of offering comfort. Or maybe he lost them a long time ago.

Foggy rolls on his side, his back to Matt, but he reaches back as well, grabs hold of Matt’s wrist and sets Matt’s hand down at his waist. It’s all the invitation Matt needs to move in closer, to press his chest against the length of Foggy’s back, to count the reassuring links of his spinal column as he curls into a question mark on the mattress.

“Can you hear what I’m thinking? In my heart and stuff?”

Matt moves his arm across Foggy’s chest, lets his chin bump into Foggy’s shoulder so that he’ll feel it when Matt shakes his head. “You know I can’t.”

Foggy sighs, disheartened. “Really wish you could right now buddy.”

Matt tightens his arm, slips his leg between Foggy’s so that their ankles overlap. “Want to try it the old fashion way?”

Foggy covers Matt’s hand on his chest. His is palm warm and his fingers are calloused where they trace the veins threaded throughout the back of Matt’s hand. He’s quiet for so long Matt thinks he’s decided to keep quiet instead. He can only hope things will be better in the morning.

“It was a good offer.” Foggy says finally. Matt feels the words throughout the room, under his hand, beneath his chin, inside his chest. “You could have taken it.”

“I really couldn’t.” Matt answers, keeping his voice low to match Foggy’s, tucking his face into Foggy’s hair and the back of his neck, breathing in the scent of beer and sweat, car exhaust and generic two-in-one shampoo. And underneath all that, embedded in Foggy’s every skin, the singular scent belonging to no one else.

“Matty—”

“Are you seriously trying to talk me into this?” Matt asks, incredulous and impatient that he even has to explain this to Foggy. _Foggy_ of all people. He lifts his face from Foggy’s hair. “Foggy she offered me a lot of money, sure, but it doesn’t matter. She could have offered me a hundred times more and I would have still said no. You already know all the reasons why I could never work for her. Not to mention I already have a job. We’re Nelson _and_ Murdock, aren’t we?”

Foggy’s head shifts on the pillow, maybe a nod, it’s too small a gesture for Matt to be sure. “Yeah.” He says, though he doesn’t sound convinced and Matt fights the urge to slither over him, to cover Foggy’s body completely with his own and wrap himself around him so tightly Foggy could never doubt the sincerity of Matt’s words. He kisses the wing of Foggy’s shoulder blade instead and tightens his grip.

-

Matt leaves Foggy sleeping the next morning. Foggy’s heart is slow and steady in sleep, peaceful after too long thumping fitfully in the dark. Matt leaves him a glass of water on the bedside table, next to a bottle of aspirin Matt hopes he won’t need. He presses a kiss to Foggy’s bare shoulder before he goes, leaves a message on his phone to let him know he’s gone out but will be back soon.

He hands the cabbie the business card Rosalind left behind on the conference table yesterday, asks him to take him that address. The building itself reminds Matt of L&Z, cavernous rooms of steel and glass, air conditioned to just above freezing, full of quick moving people, fluttering nervously to and fro. The receptionist sounds skeptical in her greeting, probably taken aback by a blind man in jeans and a raggedy Columbia sweatshirt requesting a meeting with her employer. “Is Ms. Sharpe expecting you?” She asks carefully, her fingers clicking across her keyboard as she speaks.

Matt nods, gives her a small, polite smile, hands curling benignly on the handle of his cane. “Yes, we have a standing appointment.”

“Oh,” she says, “If you could take a seat Mr. Murdock, it’ll just be a moment.” Matt sits in an uncomfortable waiting room chair for six minutes, cane folded across his knees as the receptionist tries to get a hold of Rosalind. He counts footsteps up and down the hallways, gets a rough estimate of how many people are working this Saturday, plays a game where he pieces different conversations together in order to create the most insane chain of events.

“Mr. Murdock,” the receptionist says at long last, “Ms. Sharpe will see you now.”

-

“Matthew.” Rosalind says as the receptionist closes the office door behind him. “Come in, take a seat. Can I offer you anything?” Matt covers the distance between the door and the chairs in front of her desk with confident, measured steps, cane leading the way until he’s a satisfying distance. All these years and this the first time they’ve ever stood in a room alone with one another, and he’d like it to be the last. He focuses on the source of Rosalind’s voice, coming up at him from behind her desk, lowers his face in its direction even if he can’t meet her eye. He wants her to know she has his full attention.

“That won’t be necessary Ms. Sharpe I won’t be long. I just wanted to speak to you about your visit to our office yesterday.”

Rosalind sits back in her chair—leather, expensive—and when she moves her hands off her keyboard there’s the clink of metal (jewelry: rings, a watch, bracelets) against the glass surface of her desk. “Something tells me you’re not here because you’ve reconsidered my offer.” She says, sounding almost amused.

“I’m not interested in wasting either of our time Ms. Sharpe so I’ll be frank. In the future, any interactions you wish to have with the firm of Nelson and Murdock should be purely professional in nature. In the event that you have actual business to attend to, you should be sure to call ahead and schedule an appointment with our office manager. If,” Matt smiles, but his voice remains even, leaves no room for doubt, “ _If_ you fail to abide by these rules Ms. Sharpe I will not hesitate to contact the police and report you for trespassing.”

Rosalind’s heart beats on unflinching. “Do you know what I’ve always hated most about Hell’s Kitchen, Matt? If I may call you Matt?”

Matt’s smile sharpens. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Mr. Murdock then.” Rosalind replies smoothly, unruffled by Matt’s poorly disguised rudeness. “What I’ve always hated most is how small it is. Suffocating really. It’s such a tiny, unimportant fragment of this whole island, but to the people who live here, one on top of the other, it’s their whole world. Most of them live their whole lives never knowing that they’ve got the rest of world right outside their doors. It’s the sort of place that makes people settle for the things they know, things that are familiar and comfortable and safe.”

Matt forces his hands to remain relaxed around his cane, his face smooth and devoid of the any emotion. He doesn’t want to give the satisfaction of a reaction.

“You must be aware that it’s common knowledge throughout your neighborhood that your relationship with your partner is more than just purely professional. My PI didn’t even have to dig to find that out. Neither of you does anything to hide it.”

Matt’s lips twitch, his voice firm when he answers. “That’s because we don’t have anything to hide.”

Rosalind’s hands move, her watch ticks away another minutes, perfectly in time. “Of course not. I just want you to be sure, really sure Mr. Murdock, that you’re considering all your options. I’m sure you don’t think much of me but I happen to think a lot of you. I’ve heard talk about you and your work. You’re a man with great potential. It would be a shame for you to waste it by not knowing when to pursue an opportunity.”

Matt swallows. He wants to tell her she’s wrong. That she was wrong to leave and she was wrong to come back. Matt wants to laugh and tell her that whatever potential he has to offer is intertwined with Foggy. They’re a team, complimentary pieces of the same whole. Matt wants to snap and tell her that if she was looking for new blood she should have gone for Foggy. Foggy who’s smart and quick-thinking and knows how to talk to people. Matt wants to say that she’ll never know her own son and it doesn’t matter how much money Matt turns down, hers will always be the biggest loss. Instead he says, “I’m doing what I believe in with the people who matter. That’s all the opportunity I need.” Matt squares his shoulders, “I believe this conversation is over, Ms. Sharpe.” Because really, there’s nothing else for him to say.

-

“Where’d you go?” Foggy asks, rolling towards Matt when he slips back under the covers.

“How’s your head feel?” Matt asks in return, wrapping an arm under Foggy’s shoulder as he wiggles into place next to him. “So not smooth.” Foggy chides, drowsy and soft. His hair tickles against Matt’s chin. “Did you break any laws?”

Matt chuckles. “Nope. No broken laws.”

“Did you bend any laws?”

“Foggy.”

“What? You’ve got a loose interpretation of what breaking the law entails...” The last few words trail off. Foggy yawns, nosing at Matt’s skin.

Matt hides his smile in Foggy’s hair. “I’ll tell you about it later.” He says, content to lie in bed a little while longer.

“I really am okay Matty.” Foggy murmurs, but his breathing is already dropping off again, his body slackening against Matt’s. Matt kisses Foggy’s head. “I know you are.” He says, but Foggy’s only answer is a wispy exhale. There’s nowhere else Matt would rather be.

-

“Matt?” Karen’s soft spoken as she approaches his desk, her shoes tap a familiar rhythm out across the floorboards. He pauses the recording he’s listening to, “Yeah.”

“Rosalind Sharpe’s office just called. She would like to, and I quote, ‘schedule an appointment with the partners of Nelson and Murdock’.”

“Really? What did you say?”

Karen shift her weight, arms crossed over her chest. “I told her that your schedules were currently booked through the end of the month working with actual clients but that I would see what I could do. I think I might have found some time two Thursdays after never.”

Matt grins, “Thank you Karen.”

Karen shrugs, heart performing a complicated measure, “Don’t mention it. I mean, we have to look after our own, don’t we?” That’s what family does. Protects each other by whatever means it can. Matt nods, dislodging his earphone. He listens to it bounce on the scarred surface of his desk. “Exactly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the full trope according to the list I'm working off of is _defending each other to scathing tertiary or otherwise minor characters but ONLY WHEN THE OTHER ISN’T AROUND_. And while I love this trope as much as the next person I just could not think of any circumstances where Foggy and/or Matt would _only_ defend one another when the other person wasn't around. Hence, this chapter. I should probably throw out that I've never actually read a comic with Rosalind Sharpe as a character, so my interpretation of the character is entirely an amalgamation of my fandom exposure and Bart Bass from Gossip Girl.


	14. time travel scenarios

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy swallows around his own beating heart when his eyes land on the man of the hour. A decidedly sullen, knobby-kneed, gangly Matt Murdock who can’t be more than twelve or thirteen, if that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point in my life I decided that, when in doubt, blame it on Danny Rand.

* * *

 

 

 

Matt was obviously some kind of hide-and-seek champion in a previous life. Or maybe just in his life previous to Foggy.

Prior to today Foggy wouldn’t have thought it was possible to _lose_ an entire person in a one-bedroom apartment but today’s been a day of wacky new things Foggy never thought were possible.

“I’ll check the roof again.” Karen says; obviously as flustered as Foggy feels and keeping it together only slightly better than he is at the moment. Foggy makes a note to make sure there’s enough in the bank come Christmastime to give Karen one hell of a bonus. And maybe a paid vacation somewhere sunny and far away from reckless assholes who get themselves whammied by fucking criminal wizards. “He can’t have gotten far, Foggy.” Karen adds, pushing her hair out of her face, pressing her palm to forehead, obviously at a loss. “I mean, he’s...we’ll find him.”

Foggy wants to point out that they have literally no way of knowing that. Matt’s been a stubbornly independent and resourceful asshole for as long as Foggy’s known him, Foggy doubts that’s a habit Matt developed in adulthood. And considering the mess that was this morning, Foggy wouldn’t blame him if he did decide to scale the side of the building and is halfway to New Jersey by now. Foggy wouldn’t put it past him either. But Karen’s trying so hard Foggy has to try to and not just give into the urge to open the fridge and drink every last beer he finds in there.

“Okay, I’ll…check in here again, maybe there’s an air vent or something I missed.” Karen nods like they’re actually making progress and takes off up the stairs to the roof of Matt’s building.

Foggy searches the apartment high and low. Again. He opens the closets, the cupboards, the cabinets, checks under the bed on hands and knees and checks the tub twice. Matt’s nowhere to be found. Foggy can’t help the feeling Karen’s not going to find Matt up on the roof this time either.

Foggy’s about to dial Rand again, feeling increasingly frantic (which is impressive considering how incredibly anxious he’s been since this all started), still stinging with leftover petulance from this morning’s nonsensical conversation that had shed absolutely zero light on whatever the hell it is that’s going on other than Danny’s assurances that someone was already working on it, when his phone vibrates in his hand. He doesn’t even pause to check the caller ID, accepts the incoming call as quickly as he can tap his screen, jamming the phone up against his ear. “Hello? Matt?” It’s one of the stupidest things he could say considering Matt doesn’t even know what a cell phone is and sure as hell isn’t carrying his own right now, but again, it’s been that kind of morning.

“Franklin?” It’s Father Lantom. Foggy’s heart squeezes so hard behind his ribs, strangled by both fear and hope. “He’s here.”

-

It’s moments like this that Foggy can truly appreciate how weird his life’s actually is now, leaping out of a cab and catching sight of Father Lantom’s sitting outside on a shady bench, looking defiantly serene in the face of the decided drab weather that warns of the oncoming winter. Well, it’s not really the priest that makes the picture weird. Foggy swallows around his own beating heart when his eyes land on the man of the hour. A decidedly sullen, knobby-kneed, gangly Matt Murdock who can’t be more than twelve or thirteen, if that. (“What the _fuck_?” Foggy hissed when he walked in on Rand in the living room, depositing a miniaturized and unconscious person Foggy could not accept as Matt, right there on their very couch. Matt had been wrapped in a coat that was worth more than the sum of Foggy’s entire wardrobe, the Daredevil suit crammed inside the gym bag hanging off Rand’s shoulder. Rand had actually looked a little guilty, setting Matt down carefully and prefacing his excuse with, “I can explain” before not actually explaining anything at all.)

“Foggy’s here Matthew.” Father Lantom says kindly, which causes Matt to slump further into himself. Foggy wonders if it’s the hastily purchased kid-sized clothes (none of which seem to fit right, either too big or too small in all the wrong places), or the adult glasses that won’t stay put on the bridge of Matt’s prepubescent nose, or maybe even the cane that’s almost as tall as Matt when fully extended, but all of it put together makes Matt seem even smaller and younger and infinitely more fragile. (Thank God Matt’s powers aren’t mind reading because he would definitely kick Foggy’s ass regardless of his age if he heard that.)

Matt doesn’t say anything in response, which makes Foggy think he might be a teenager after all. Foggy makes sure to keep his approach slow so as to not set Matt running again. “Hey Matty.” He says, giving a pretty decent wave he thinks Matt probably registers.

Matt scowls. “That’s not my name.” His voice definitely hasn’t reached puberty yet, higher and softer than Foggy knows it, but it’s hoarse now, probably from the hollering episode earlier, or maybe just from disuse. Father Lantom hadn’t mentioned if Matt had talked to him, but Foggy knows Matt hadn’t spoken to him for hours even before he’d taken off.

“Right. Sorry. Matt. Matthew. Matt? Let’s stick with Matt okay?”

Mat doesn’t give any indication of whether or not that’s okay at all but Foggy’s pretty sure nothing is actually going to be okay until Danny sets things straight. Either way he proceeds with extreme caution. “You sort of left me in the dust back there Matt. I was really worried when I realized you were gone.” He knows he’s hedging his bets; guilt-trips don’t ever work the way Foggy needs them to with Matt. It doesn’t seem to be working right now. Matt’s mouth twists like it’s only the fact that they’re in the shadow of a church that’s keeping him from going off on Foggy again. (“If this is some kind of test you can tell him to fuck off—” Matt had spit out, anger apparent in his voice even if he stumbled over the words, eyes wide and frightened. It had taken Foggy a minute to figure out whom Matt was talking about and even when he could defend himself, he wasn’t sure Matt believed him.) “I know this is a lot. A lot _a lot_. Hell, I mean, sorry Father, uh, fuck—” Foggy winces and Father Lantom stares on, patience bordering on bemusement. Foggy really wants to know what that means about the kind of life Lathom’s led, if time-warped parishioners showing up at his front door don’t throw him for a loop. “If you don’t believe me listen to my heart Matt. You’re probably doing it right now anyway. You can tell if I’m lying, right?” Matt doesn’t nod but Foggy doesn’t know what else to do but keep going. “I wish I could tell you what’s going on here but I’m in the dark on this one, same as you. But what I can tell you is that there are people who care about you, people who were worried when they couldn’t find you and _you_ might not care but the Matt _I_ know would—” He’d still do it anyway, but this kid doesn’t need to know that. “—and I can tell you that we’re friends. Best friends. And I know it’s a lot to ask, but I need you to believe me when I say that I’m not trying to hurt you or take advantage of what you can do. This isn’t a test Matt. If you don’t believe me then…you can stay here until we figure it out, I won’t force you to come back with me, I just—I want you to be safe.” Foggy stops, suddenly nervous. He prays Matt doesn’t interpret that as a lie. “Do you believe me?”

It’s been more than twenty years since Foggy was that young and he isn’t sure if anything he just said would have appealed to him even then, but someone on high might just be looking out for him after all. Matt’s shoulders lose a little of their brittleness. He shrugs. “I guess.”

-

Karen physically restrains herself from reacting when she actually sees Matt-the-Child for the first time. She’d taken Foggy’s call this morning surprisingly in stride considering Foggy had opened with ‘Matt’s shrunk’ and ended with ‘I can’t find him’. He’d explained a little better once she’d actually showed, and she hadn’t once asked Foggy if he was drunk or dreaming, just jumped right into the search. There are things you can’t survive without becoming lifelong friends, helping take down a criminal kingpin, running a perpetually broke law firm, and acting as accessories to vigilantism are apparently some of them.

She balls her hands into fists, squeezes them at her sides and shuffles back, gives Matt wide berth even before he comes to a standstill, “Hi Matt.” She says kindly, looking at Matt and then glancing at Foggy. Foggy keeps his hands in his pockets now that Matt’s let go of his arm, nods towards Karen, “This is Karen, the friend I told you about on the way over. She’s...she’s really nice.” Matt nods, takes a second before he takes another hesitant step further into the apartment. They’d taken a cab back even if the church is walking distance away, Foggy doesn’t think this Matt would be in favor of being led all the way back and he seems to be slightly more in need of it that the Matt Foggy’s accustomed to.

Foggy’s trying to piece together a timeline but it’s hard to do that without all the information. Matt’s past has always been a murky subject, something Matt paints in the broadest strokes and with great reluctance. Even after the crime fighting cat was out of the bag, Matt wasn’t any more likely to tell Foggy much of anything about the years that spanned the length of time after his father died but before they met. That’s more than ten years of Matt’s life, a mystery to Foggy after almost as many years of friendship and then some. (“I don’t want you to have the wrong impression,” Matt said uneasily the one time Foggy had let himself press, “I wasn’t exactly Oliver Twist begging for gruel, Fog. It just, it was what it was.” Like that even began to cover it.)

“I ordered pizza.” Karen says, offering both Foggy and Matt a reassuring smile. “If you guys are hungry.”

The three of them eat in jittery silence, Karen and Foggy picking at their slices while Matt puts away half the pie by himself. For such a scrawny little guy Matt can sure eat.

Karen’s forehead gets more and more furrowed the longer they sit there, and when they clean up, she makes a point of saying, “I’ll put it the rest of it in the refrigerator, you can help yourself if you get hungry later. Or we can get something else.” It takes Foggy a second to place the voice. In all their years working together he’s heard Karen use it a hundred times with clients, with frazzled parents seeking custody and tenants looking for help dealing with crooked landlords, with frail looking individuals trying to get their affairs in order before the time comes, and people just trying to get someone on their side. He’s never heard her use it with Matt before.

He’s half-afraid Matt will react as poorly to it as he did to Foggy’s earlier attempts at keeping him calm, but Matt just nods. He carries himself differently, and whether that’s because of his age or how confusing this situation must be, Foggy doesn’t know. He just watches Matt turn his head to follow Karen’s progress into the kitchen. He holds the rest of himself stiff and still in a way that reminds Foggy of Matt after a patrol gone bad, his every move telegraphing conscious effort.

Matt flinches when Karen opens a cabinet, hands flying up to his head, though they stop just before they clap around his ears. Foggy’s _definitely_ never seen him do that.

“Hey bud— _Matt_ —are—are you okay?” Foggy asks, ready to rush over in case Matt pitches forward and bangs his face into the coffee table or something. Who knows how impromptu time travel messes with one’s enhanced senses?

Matt curls his hands into fists, forcefully sets them back down on his lap. “I’m fine.” He says, sounding defensive again.

Matt keeps his hands clasped together on his lap afterward, his feet firmly planted on the ground. It’s perfect Sunday Mass composure if Foggy’s ever seen it, muscle memory that lies dormant in all recovering Irish Catholics.

Foggy trails after mental bread crumbs, tries to place Matt at ten or eleven. Post-accident obviously. Matt has never once asked for his dad in this whole crazy day. It isn’t hard to read between the lines. Definitely at Saint Agnes then, but after Stick apparently. Foggy wonders if this is before or after the first foster family, he’s too young for Matt to have already known the second.

A part of him wishes he could have just asked Matt before and actually have gotten an answer. For all the things they do talk about, it’s in moments like these, when the shadow of all the things they don’t know how to say rears its ugly and unfriendly head, that Foggy remembers his ever present fear that no matter how far they come or how much things change, they’ll never get out from under the weight of Matt’s secrets. Those things he doesn’t trust Foggy enough to share with him.

Matt can probably feel him staring, but Foggy doesn’t know where else to look.

“I’m sorry.” Matt says abruptly, looking uncomfortable, fingers laced together in front of him as though in prayer, squeezed so tightly his knuckles are bleached white. “For running away earlier. I just—I thought—”

Foggy holds up his hands, “Hey, you don’t—I mean, this is weird. And scary. And we didn’t really get off to the best start.” Waking up in a strange place with only a stranger isn’t really a good way to start anything. “Do you think—I mean, let’s try again. I’m Foggy.” He gives a wave. “And as you know, she is the lovely Karen Page.” Matt turns his head towards the kitchen in acknowledgment. Karen smiles at Foggy over the countertop. “Hi. Again.”

“Hello.” Matt answers, voice still unsure but calmer than before. “I’m Matt. Though—you know that already don’t you?”

“Hello Matt.” Karen calls back. This has got to be the world’s weirdest group session.

“Awesome.” Foggy adds for maximum positivity, trying to get this off to a better start than any of their previous attempts at conversation. “It’s nice to meet you Matt.”

-

It’s hard to gain someone’s trust when you don’t know what you can and can’t tell them. Rand doesn’t have very specific instructions, which is the problem with this whole magic business if you ask Foggy. It’s all too inky to ever be sure he’s not going to irrevocably fuck up the space-time continuum by letting Matt know that one day he’s going to love green beans. And beat up criminals. Not that the second one is really appropriate information to share with a ten year old.

They give Matt a tour of the apartment that is technically his. Matt seems more comfortable with Karen and Foggy doesn’t have it in him to begrudge either of them that, falls into step at their side as Karen guides Matt around the living room and the bed room and the short hallways that lead to the bathroom and the front door. They take him up to the roof, hopeful since the adult Matt they’re familiar with genuinely loves it, but this Matt just seems disorientated, head turning this way and that like he’s hearing too many things all at once and he’s not sure what to pay attention to. “You say it helps if you pick one thing and focus on it.” Foggy says, trying to be helpful. Matt’s narrow shoulders tighten, his jaw clenches. He asks to go back inside.

-

They have reheated pizza and McDonald’s for dinner. Matt eats everything with a look of pure determination on his face. Foggy recognizes it as the same look he got in Civ Pro when their professor told him he might not be able to handle the workload. It’s the look of a man determined to prove someone wrong, though it unsettles something in Foggy to see it now, on the face of a child eating greasy French fries. Karen and Foggy try to keep up a conversation, but the day’s been oddly quiet so far, and their attempts to navigate through safe topics of discussion haven’t helped. There’s an awkward beat while Foggy’s cleaning up, half-listening to Karen and Matt’s conversation. Rand said they had to be careful about what they told Matt about his life until they better understood what happened to bring this Matt forward (Foggy’s stomach hurts, trying so hard and utterly failing at not worrying about where _their_ Matt’s gone). Karen’s telling Matt about herself, not the blood-splattered, falsely accused of murder version of events, but a tame and highly condensed version that basically boils down to, “You and Foggy helped me when I really needed it and now we work together.”

“What do we do?” Matt asks, sitting crossed legged on the floor now.

“We…” Karen looks over at Foggy askance, “We help people and try to make the city a better place.”

Matt’s dark head bobs. Maybe he’s nodding. “How?”

“A lot of different ways.”

“Do we…do we _hurt_ people?” Foggy looks up from the glasses he’s rinsing. The suit’s still stored in the gym bag Rand brought it back in, put away in the closet where Matt keeps it and his father’s things. When Matt had explored it earlier he’d been too captivated by his dad’s things to ask about the gym bag neither Foggy nor Karen made mention of. Out of all the things they showed Matt today, his father’s things bought them the most credibility. Matt definitely seemed infinitely more at ease after he’d touched them so Foggy hadn’t put the trunk back in the closet, had carried it out and put it up on the coffee table instead so that Matt could have access to it whenever he liked.

Matt’s question hangs in the air and there are a hundred answers for it, complicated, drawn out ones that even Foggy doesn’t think he understands or believes some days.

“No.” Foggy can’t make out Karen’s face from here, not now that she’s turned away, but her voice answers with so much conviction that Foggy thinks her heart must not stumble at all.

-

Danny sighs on the other end of the line. “Sorry Nelson, it’s going to be a while longer.” Foggy resists the urge to throw his phone into the wall because it wouldn’t hurt anyone but his wallet, hangs up and walks back over to the living room where Matt’s helping Karen make up the couch. He hadn’t wanted to take the bed, and Foggy wonders if it’s because it smells like Foggy. He hadn’t thought of changing the bedding before, it seemed utterly irrelevant in light of everything else, but even if he had there’s no way Matt would miss all the other signs that must exist, indicators that one-day Matt will live here and he won’t live here alone.

Matt keeps smoothing his hands over the sheets Karen helps him put down on the couch, and somehow, even after everything else, it’s that that makes Foggy want to cry. It’s hard dealing with Matt’s tragic life when he’s an actual adult, but right now he’s not even that, he’s just a kid, scared and confused and trying so hard to put on a brave face in front of two people who are asking for a lifetime of trust. He’s just a kid who’s been through too much shit, and will have to put up with so much more, because the universe is stupid and unkind and has never cared if people are just kids, it just keeps throwing punches.

Foggy goes to grab Matt’s pillow from his side of the bed, changes the pillowcase just in case that helps. “This is yours.” He says, handing it over to him.

“Thank you.” Matt says, achingly polite now, and Foggy knows, heart hammering and throat tight, that he’s looking at the first mask Matt ever taught himself to wear.

-

Karen and him take the bed. Karen doesn’t ask if she should go and Foggy loves her for it, though he was ready to beg her to stay if he had to. It’s not just Matt who needs her there. Karen sleeps in some of Matt’s clothes but even with the lights off it’s nothing like having Matt there. The mattress doesn’t sink beneath her in the same way, she takes space up differently.

“He’s going to be okay.” Karen says, her hand closing around Foggy’s wrist in the dark, and just for now Foggy tries desperately to believe her. For the kid who’s probably lying awake on the couch, and for their own Matt, wherever he might be, and for both of them, side by side and scared shitless in the weak pink light of the billboard.

Foggy falls asleep and dreams of nothing in particular, wakes up with an overwhelming sense of dread, mind swinging from unconscious nothingness to a full blown parade of worries, complete with a marching band. Because if this goes on for much longer they’ll have to take Matt to buy more clothes and glasses that actually fit on his face and a cane he can actually use (especially now that he seems to need it more than the Matt Foggy knows). He’s just starting to worry about what it’ll mean for the firm and whether Matt will have to go to school again and how are Foggy and Karen going to explain suddenly acquiring a kid who answers to the same name as their missing colleague and Foggy can’t afford Columbia again, he’s still paying off _his_ loans and oh God Matt’s going to have to sit for the Bar again and —

The sliding glass door squeaks on its rails as it slides open, and Matt’s feet move almost silent over the floor. Foggy pushes up on his elbows, tries to make as much noise as he possibly can. Though Matt probably already knows he’s awake. “Matt?” he whispers, keeps his voice low so as to not wake Karen. “You need something, buddy?”

Matt creeps further into the room, comes to a stop by Foggy’s side of the bed. “Can I ask you something?” Matt whispers. Foggy can barely make out the sheen of his eyes in the low light. “And will you tell me the truth?”

Foggy presses his lips tight. Fuck it. He’s never made a habit of lying to Matt. He’s not starting now. “Yes.”

“You know about me, right? And about him?”

“You mean Stick?”

“Yeah.”

Foggy pushes himself up until he’s fully upright. “Yeah, I mean, I know what you’ve told me.”

“Can you…will you just tell me…did it happen? The thing that he was preparing me for, did it ever happen?” Matt asks, voice small in the near dark. It feels like a blow to Foggy’s stomach, knocks the air out of his lungs and leaves him floundering for a long, painful second. He shakes his head, hair swinging over his ears, mattress creaking underneath him at every shift of his body. “No.” Foggy answers, his voice hard, full of the sound and fury that comes from knowing someone you love has been hurt and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it. “You’ve never let it happen.”

There’s a long stretch of silence then, and Foggy wants to know what Matt’s hearing, if he’s listening to the sirens coming and going on the streets below or the neighbors sleeping all around them. If he’s monitoring Karen’s resting heart or Foggy’s uneasy breathing or if he’s a hundred miles and twenty years away, thinking about a man who hasn’t shown his face in New York City for years.

“Okay.” Matt says, already shuffling away, and Foggy watches his silhouette move through the darkened room, small, so fucking small, and he can’t help himself. He never could around Matt. “You’re so much more than anything he ever said you’d be Matty. You—you’ll give people hope that things can be better.” _Do you believe me?_ his heart asks fitfully. Foggy needs Matt to believe him.

“Good night Foggy.” Matt replies, slipping through the door and sliding it shut behind him.

-

He wakes up to Karen screaming. It’s still mostly dark out, and he jams his foot against the bed leg in his rush to get out of the room, but he is far beyond caring. Karen is screaming, fairly close to shrieking before she’s abruptly cut off, and then Foggy’s standing on the threshold of the living room, bat in hand, but there’s no one to rescue. Not Karen and not Matt, who’s wrapped in a blanket and standing at his normal height, Karen’s arms tight around him and his head bowed on her shoulder. Karen’s on the brink of babbling, a steady stream of profanity and an incredulous litany of Matt’s name, over and over, pulling back to study him like she can’t believe he’s really there.

“Matty?” Foggy breathes, dropping the bat and rushing towards them, throwing his arms around them both and crushing them close. Karen is positively vibrating beneath his arm and Matt’s _Matt_ again, broad-shouldered and sharp angles, his hair shorn short around the sides instead of flopping all over like an upside down bowl of hair. “Fuck Matty, whatever you did, don’t ever do it again—you, you were such a shit—gave me a fucking heart attack man, you ran away and I—shit do you remember—where were you even? What—” He presses a kiss to the part of Matt closest to him, right against the shell of his left ear. “Matty.”

One of Matt’s hands creeps out from under his blanket and grabs a fistful of Foggy’s shirt, grip so tight Foggy thinks he feels the fabric give just a little.

The three of them hold on to each other for a long time.


	15. barely surviving something that almost makes the other break down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is what Matt does: He plans escapes. He crafts apologies (to Karen and Foggy and Claire and his father and Hell’s Kitchen). He mediates. He prays. 
> 
> He keeps track of the seconds in heartbeats and he waits. 
> 
> It’s as boring as it sounds.

* * *

 

 

 

It’s been three, almost four days now if his internal clock is right. There hasn’t been any indication of another human being in almost two days. Even the streets are muffled from wherever he is, somewhere dank and humid. Sweat collects under the collar of his shirt, down his back, behind his knees, and along his legs. The texture of his socks, previously drenched and now partially dried inside his shoes and around his feet, is slowly driving him mad the longer he sits with it.

There’s blood in the air, from the gash on the back of his head and inside his mouth, the welts around his wrists, torn bloody from days of pulling fruitlessly at his restraints. His fingers are numb now, his arms ache from being extended, the little relief he can provide them wreaks havoc on his bruised ribs. He tries to mediate to cut through the disorienting silence, but there’s a bone-deep frustration that borders on the self-indulgent that gets in the way, incredulous that this is happening at all. That’s hubris for you, he guesses. Somewhere Foggy must be laughing. (He knows of course that Foggy is not laughing, there’s no amount of head trauma that could possibly make him think Foggy could be laughing right now, but if he thinks about it, if he imagines Foggy scared or angry or hurt, Matt won’t know how to hold himself together. So Matt imagines him laughing instead, that full, belly-deep laughter, round with disbelief at Matt’s luck, “You’re literally a magnet for misfortune, buddy.” And the world’s a box of iron filings.)

Matt pulls at the restraints, yanks at them with all his strength, and when those hold, when the pain around his wrists and in his arms becomes too much to keep trying, he screams.

But there’s no one to hear him.

-

His dad ruffles his hair. “C’mon Matty, up and at ‘em. We gotta go.” It’s early, too cold, and his dad’s knuckles are swollen and bruised, his eye black, but he’s smiling at Matt, pulling the blanket off from over his head. “Time to hit the books.” Matt doesn’t want to move, tries to tell Dad he’s tired and sleepy. Can’t he, just this once, stay home with him instead. Dad chuckles, “C’mon kid, time to go.”

Matt wakes up, sweat stinging as it trickles over the open wound on the back of his head, dried blood flaking off his skin when he turns his head. He’s still alone.

-

The only thing worse than the buzzing in his right ear is the absolute silence that comes after. He shakes his head but it doesn’t help. His head aches, throbs, just another hurt on top of all the others. He tries to remember every detail of the men who grabbed him, there were five total, another in the van, and the driver. Seven. They were armed, ambushed Matt from behind while he was trying to cover Karen outside on the courtroom steps, the streets alight with chaos, people screaming and running, bullets tearing through the air. Karen had screamed when they pulled Matt from her, and Matt had fought, kicked and twisted and tried to do everything he could conceivably do as himself, without giving away everything else. He could have done it too, in such close contact, even a blind man can land a solid blow and no one can ask too many questions about his accuracy. He flexes his fingers now and remembers with some satisfaction that he at least broke someone’s nose. It hadn’t made them happy. The blow to the head came just before he was pulled into the van and God had it made Matt miss the suit. It’s hard to believe now that he ever went around the city with nothing more than a piece of fabric over his face, but maybe the rules were different then. Or maybe he was just better, quicker, harder to catch. Maybe he really is getting sloppy with confidence. Going soft as a house cat.

The ringing in his ear subsides, just a little, just enough that it leaves an odd echo in its place before it turns to nothing.

-

This is what Matt does: He plans escapes. He crafts apologies (to Karen and Foggy and Claire and his father and Hell’s Kitchen). He mediates. He prays.

He keeps track of the seconds in heartbeats and he waits.

It’s as boring as it sounds.

This is what Matt does unintentionally: He dreams.

He dreams of faces he’s never seen and faces he’ll never see again. He dreams of the Central Park Zoo, where he went on a school field trip once as a child. In his dream he’s standing in front of the tank of leaf cutter ants.

He slips in and out of consciousness without effort or choice, dreams of nonsense, wakes to thirst and hunger and pain. He dreams of running, of rooftops, of wind howling in the night. Of Karen screaming and the smell of her coffee when he first comes into work in the morning, bitter and acidic in the air. He dreams of Foggy, his voice thin and nasally with tears, the air heavy with salt and with anger, the deafening click of the door closing shut behind Foggy as he left.

Matt wakes up with his heart in his throat. He laughs to himself, disbelief sour in his belly, to think that this is how he’s going to die.

-

He’s dreaming. He must be dreaming.

There’s a change in air, the first fresh breath he’s taken in days, thunder underfoot at the stampede of approaching bodies. Five? Six? There are too many variables to guess at with any accuracy without his hearing to confirm it, Matt can only steal himself for whatever is coming for him.

The room is too small and too hot to hold so many bodies all at once, only two come near him, the room is stifling with them, but this is his only chance. He won’t waste it. His hands are useless but they’re finally free from the pipe he was tied to. He manages a solid charge, slams his shoulder into one of the heavily armored bodies, takes them by surprise long enough to swing his fists, still bound to one another, into the other opponent. Pain lances through his wrist and up his forearm, but it’s easy to ignore, to bury it among all the other pain Matt’s become familiar with. But Matt is no condition for a fight, loses his balance when he tries to stagger towards the door. He catches himself on the wall, tries to right himself, push himself forward but it’s too late, he’s being pinned to the walls, an arm across his back, his hands crushed between him and the wall, his right arm throbbing and hot.

He has to keep fighting. He has to—

-

“…anyway Karen’s going to send them the best muffin basket we can afford. No one’s said anything about assault charges but Brett says Boyle’s face looks like someone dropped an anvil on it, so y’know, it doesn’t hurt to stack the odds in our favor anyway we can. But when you wake up buddy, we’re gonna have to have a talk about how this just goes to show that we can’t punch our way out of every problem…”

This at least is a good dream.

-

He wakes up cold and thirsty, his tongue feels three times too big to fit inside his mouth. It’s dark, and there’s a horrible second where he’s nine again, scratchy sheets and pain in every cell of his body. He jumps inside his skin and the darkness reconfigures, time shifts around him and he remembers. His father is not there to comfort him this time, but Matt is not alone.

He’s lost too much time, can’t be sure how much of it has passed since he last kept count, but for right now it doesn’t matter, concentrates instead on the weight of Foggy’s fingers over his, the warmth of his hand seeping into Matt’s, his breathing coming in and out in a constant rhythm. It hurts but he’s endured worse for less, shifts his hand beneath Foggy’s so that he can take hold of it for himself.

“Hey…” Foggy says, sleep slow and faint.

“I think…I dreamed you.” Matt slurs as best he can, realizing more and more that this is nothing like before, the edges are all muted and soft, the darkness gentle as it wraps around him, holds him close. Safe.

Foggy’s heart beats, each chamber perfectly in tune, a syncopated rhythm that stands alone from every other in the world. Matt’s favorite song.

Foggy’s hand squeezes. “Go to sleep Casanova.” He shifts, makes worry spike through Matt as their hands part, but then there’s a hand on Matt’s forehead, a feather light brush of lips over his skin, as distinct as a fingerprint.

-

“…in conclusion,” Claire says, and everything from the tone of her voice to the way she holds herself tells Matt how incredibly dome she is with his nonsense. “Your eardrum is mostly healed but your wrist is going to take another four to six weeks and I don’t want to see you back here because you couldn’t be bothered to actually listen to the advice of a medical professional.” There’s the sound a chart flipping shut. “I’m glad you’re okay Matt.” She adds, voice genuinely warm. His first confidant in this new life of his.

“In my defense, this really wasn’t my fault. This time.” Matt says, smiling as best he can. Claire sets his chart back at the foot of his bed. Her hand squeezes at his foot. “I know that. But just so you know Matt, you’ve got a lot of good people behind you. People who would raze the city if it meant getting you back in one piece. Don’t forget it okay?”

“I won’t.” Matt promises, feeling slightly uncomfortable for reasons he can’t describe.

Claire’s hand tightens again, just briefly, and then she goes.

-

“I return bearing pudding.” Foggy announces when he comes back from his trip to the cafeteria, “They had butterscotch and tapioca, pick your poison.”

“I think I’d rather have poison.” Matt jokes, accepting the plastic bowl Foggy offers him. Tapioca then. “Karen’s at the office, she’s got like a hundred get well cards for you, and we’re gonna read them all to you Matty. She said she’d even bring some of the stuff we were gathering on the Martinez case since you insist you’re up for it, but if you so much as yawn we’re putting it away. Got it?”

“Yes mom.”

“Kinky and not really my thing Matty, but to each their own.” Foggy’s spoon taps against the side of Matt’s bowl.

“Foggy…” Matt starts, setting the bowl down on the tray top adjacent to the bed, “I—”

Foggy leans forward and Matt tilts his face upward, half-expects to feel Foggy’s lips against his brow a second time. Instead Foggy sticks a spoon into Matt’s bowl. “If you’re gonna thank me, I don’t need it. If you’re gonna apologize I don’t want it. Now eat your pudding before it grows legs and goes out into the world in search of a better life.”

This is what Matt knows: He was not forgotten. Matt Murdock disappeared, was left for dead beneath the city but the people he loves never stopped searching for him. (“When you’re feeling better remember to ask Foggy about the mayor. Actually you know what, just turn on the evening news they should be reporting his upcoming indictment any day now—”)

The pudding is sweet and texturally terrible. Matt eats every last bite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full trope: _dramatically saving each other from certain death or barely surviving something that almost makes the other break down and just smirking wearily and mumbling flippant smartass remarks to HIDE THE DEPTH OF THEIR FEELINGS_
> 
> Man I really wish I knew more about the law so that I could have written this from Foggy's POV. I feel like there are a million brilliant stories about Foggy being taken and Matt flipping his lid trying to find him (and if you have a favorite please share it with me, I'm always here for more), but man, Foggy kicking ass and taking names WITH THE LAW to save Matt? Ugh, that would be sweet. 
> 
> Also, I never said it in the fic because I couldn't figure out how to throw it in without this turning into something much longer but Vanessa is behind this attack on our friends over Nelson and Murdock.


	16. undercover as lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy waves his hands in the air, “You supers are all such drama queens. Jesus.” He squeezes at Matt’s elbow. “C’mon Mr. Summa Cum Laud, I’m gonna show you how us civilians do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School's been a beast this week and I wrote like three different versions of this chapter. One was way too angsty and other too slapstick. This is somewhere in between the two.

This is the stupidest thing they’ve ever done.

-

“This is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done.” He mumbles under his breath, searching the room for anyone who might potentially know them as anything other than the names on their name tags. 

“Really? The _stupidest_?”

“Dude don’t bring up the thing with the hot plate.”

“I didn’t have to which I think makes my point, don’t you?”

“Your face makes your point.” Foggy mutters because he refuses to let Matt get the last word on this one. Matt grins like he’s won anyhow. The asshole. 

-

He’s making small talk with someone who has absolutely no idea who he is but is thankfully too polite to admit it when Foggy spots Matt moving through the crowded conference room with barely veiled determination. “Oh, it was, uh, great seeing you again man, say hi to your family for me.” Foggy says cheerfully, leaving his cup of questionable punch behind as he cuts through the crowd with considerably less ease than Matt, reaching him just before he disappears out into the hotel hallway. “What happened to sticking together?” Foggy hisses when he finally reaches him, one hand on Matt’s elbow, slowing their pace in hope of attracting less attention. Matt turns to him, exasperation bleeding into his expression as though Foggy hadn’t found him beaten tender not four days ago. “It’s fine. I’m not going to pick a fight Foggy, but Schaffer is headed back to his room and I haven’t gotten what I came here for.” 

Foggy stares down at the name tag stuck to Matt’s chest that reads _Mike Batlin_ and Foggy seriously questions how Matt successfully gets away with anything when he isn’t wearing the horns and the cowl, because this guy? Grade-A dork. “Okay.” He says, staring down the stretch of hall that leads back to the main lobby. “Let’s go jump an elevator and get our Hardy Boys on.”

Matt shakes his head. “The elevators and stairwell doors won’t run without room cards—”

“What the hell—”

“I think, if I can access an elevator shaft I can—”

“Matt, _no_ —”

“Foggy I can—“

“Oh my God, Matt listen to me. Even if you were in mint-condition, you cannot go climbing up elevator shafts, it is just—“

“Foggy, I need to know when Schaffer’s people are moving, it’s important. Not just for me but for Jessica too, it could help us figure out what IHG is investing in—”

Foggy waves his hands in the air, “You supers are all such drama queens. Jesus.” He squeezes at Matt’s elbow. “C’mon Mr. Summa Cum Laud, I’m gonna show you how us civilians do this.”

Foggy makes sure to peel his own name tag off before he drags them both to the lobby.

-

“Hi, hello! Uh—” Foggy fumbles around with his wallet, suddenly very aware of Matt hovering at his back. “Um, I would like a room please.”

He mentally commends the clerk for not looking remotely judgmental about the fact that they’re two grown men who are apparently sneaking out of conference networking event in order to have sex on company time. “I’ll see what we have available, sir.” The clerk’s fingers fly across the keyboard. 

“How many nights will you be staying with us, sir?” It’s probably the politest way of saying Foggy can’t rent a room by the hour.

“Uh, just the night.” Foggy answers, cursing his ghostly pale face as he feels it go warm and probably the shade of a grapefruit. “Y’know how it is, with work.” He tosses out for absolutely no reason. 

The clerk nods with an air of utmost neutrality and Foggy jumps through all the other hoops apparently required when staying at an establishment that doesn’t have a number in its name. “Check out is tomorrow morning at eleven. The number for the front desk is number one on your room phone if you need anything, Mr. Nelson.” 

Foggy nods, “Cool, thanks, I’ll um, thanks.”

He grabs at the little envelope containing their coveted room key, sending one last smile at the clerk before offering his arm to Matt and leading the way to the elevator bank. “See,” Foggy says, sliding the cool metal card into the control panel and requesting the elevator up. “And I didn’t even have to reenact a scene from Mission Impossible either.”

Matt actually looks a little surprised, because he obviously never considers options with less than an eighty percent chance of breaking his neck. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Damn right you’ll pay me back, Mike.” 

Matt grins, reaching up to pull his own name tag off. “Thank you, Foggy.” He says finally, and for a second there they slip dangerous close to a moment, Matt’s earlier crabbiness about Foggy tagging along apparently forgotten, but then the elevator arrives with a soft ding, and they’re stepping inside, thankfully by themselves. “Okay, so what floor’s this dude on?”

-

Schaffer’s room, when they finally find it (using a combination of Matt’s earlier eavesdropping and Schaffer’s pretty pungent eau of rich bad guy that even Foggy can smell), is conveniently located three doors down from the communal gym on the sixteenth floor. Their room key lets them in, the door latching shut behind them. Foggy tries to keep his breathing soft so as to not create interference for Matt’s super hearing, taking a seat on the floor near the water cooler. 

“You can breathe normally you know.” Matt says softly after a few quiet minutes. Foggy glances up from his dimmed phone screen, glances at Matt’s profile in the low light. “Sorry.”

Matt shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. I, uh, you’re not distracting.”

Foggy’s brow pinches against his will, “Um, that’s good to know.”

Matt’s mouth turns downward at the corners, “That came out wrong. What I mean is, uh, I’m used to it. I don’t—it isn’t something I have to tune out. It’s— _you’re_ familiar. I think—I notice it more when it isn’t there.”

Foggy clears his throat. “Oh.”

-

Stake outs aren’t nearly as exciting as every police procedural has led Foggy to believe. Mostly they’re sitting in the dark in an overpriced hotel building playing Candy Crush with the sound off until his battery’s on the brink of death. “They’re still talking.” Matt whispers after a while, “But they haven’t mentioned anything about IHG.”

“Man who thought bad guys would be so chatty?” Foggy replies by the end of the first hour, “I mean other than every Bond movie ever made?”

Matt chuckles under his breath.

-

Foggy wakes at the careful brush of Matt’s fingers across his wrist. He shifts against the wall, his back and shoulders stiff from being hunched against Matt’s shoulder for God knows how long. It’s still completely dark outside the windows and the whole floor is just as quiet as before, everything seemingly the same with the exception of Matt’s hand gripping his arm. “Foggy?” Matt whispers, possibly not for the first time, his thumb rubbing a small unfinished circle into the back of Foggy’s hand. Foggy’s response gets buried in a yawn and he turns his face into Matt’s arm to smother it. “Fuck, sorry, sorry—are they—are they still talking?”

He can feel Matt shake his head against his hair, “No, they’re done. Schaffer’s turning in for the night.”

Foggy yawns again. “Oh, cool.” He pushes himself away from Matt, groans at the cricks in his back. “Guess we should head out then.”

They tread softly back to the elevator, Foggy rubbing at his face as they go. He slips the keycard into the elevator panel, presses the button that’ll take them back down to the lobby. Inside he lets his eyes slip shut again, listens to the hum of the elevator gears as they descend, Matt’s shoulder bumping into his every so often. The elevator comes to a gentle halt and the doors whisper open, and Foggy finds himself blinking down another taupe-toned hallway. “Huh?”

“Well, we did pay for the night. We can pretend it’s a vacation.” Matt says cautiously, his cane unfolded once more and one hand holding the elevator doors open. Foggy nods, informs Matt as much before he can remind himself it isn’t necessary. Matt isn’t wrong after all, Foggy’ already put the plastic down for the room, there’s no point in letting it go to waste. “You’re not just saying that because you’re gonna try to break into Schaffer’s room once I’m sleeping are you?” Foggy asks, because he can never be too careful when it comes to Matt, but Matt just gives him the Murdock equivalent of a blank stare until and Foggy’s following Matt out into the hall. “Even numbers on the right, Odd numbered rooms on the left.” Foggy says, squinting at each set of raised brass numbers they pass. “We’re in 188.”

He reads the numbers as they go, brings them to a stop outside their assigned door. Matt waits for Foggy to unlock the door, follows after him into the temperature controlled beige room. There are complimentary toiletries in the bathroom that they split between them, shedding their dress shirts and slacks as though this were any night during their time as roommates, when Foggy would strip without a care with Matt in the room because what did he have to hide from a roommate who couldn’t see him. Now that he knows that there’s precious little he could ever hide from Matt even if he tried, Foggy drops his clothes without giving himself the opportunity to dwell on what Matt hears whenever Foggy moves. Still, when the time comes Foggy sits on the bed hard, turning his back on Matt as he tugs his undershirt up and over his head before he slips into the opposite side of the queen-sized bed at the center of the room. Foggy can still see the afterimage of Matt’s bruises even when he reaches to turn out the light, the tidy row of stitches Claire left just over his hip. It takes a second’s maneuvering to tug the sheet free of the mattress but once Foggy’s pulled enough slack he wiggles underneath it, pulling the sheets up over them both.

The pillows are marshmallow-squishy under Foggy’s head and the mattress just the right combination of support and give, but his earlier sleepiness is all but forgotten now that he’s actually lying flat. The room is completely dark except for the light of the clock sitting on the bedside table on Foggy’s side of the bed, but Foggy can’t do much more than stare out into the darkness. At his back he can feel Matt lying besides, the straight line of Matt’s back lying parallel to Foggy’s.

“Hey Matt?” Foggy asks, trying to scrounge up something like bravery now that they’re here, side by side in the dark. 

“Yeah Foggy.”

Matt said this was a vacation and maybe it is, a vacation from their real lives, from the tense silences and the constant worry that bites at his insides whenever Matt’s out there and Foggy has no idea what’s going on but every idea of what could potentially go wrong. Maybe this is a vacation from being himself, angry and tired and scared for his best friend. 

_’Why are we here?’_ Foggy wants to ask but he knows the answer would follow him out of the room, back to his real life, the one he shares with Matt on a daily basis when he isn’t sharing this bed with him. Because the truth can hardly be a secret, Foggy’s half of it so clear cut and apparent that Matt must have read it in him years ago, can probably pick it out of Foggy’s tired lovesick heart even now. Foggy knows why he’s here, the real question is what Matt’s doing here.

”I guess this wasn’t as stupid as the hot plate thing.” Foggy says, unable to figure out the shape of the words he needs. But then he never has been able to when it comes to this. Another time, maybe. Another life.

”Told you so.” Matt answers, foot knocking against Foggy’s beneath the sheets.

-


	17. almost kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy tilts his face forward, their noses brush together, and there’s a single quiet moment where his breathing seems to stop all together. Matt lets his eyes fall shut behind the mask, counts one, two, three heart beats. Foggy exhales. Matt inhales. Everything tastes of copper.

* * *

 

 

 

“Holy shit.” Foggy exhales, breathing irregular and sharp, but Matt only has ears for the bedlam and clamor of Foggy’s heart behind the cage of his ribs, beating. Still beating.

“Are you hurt?” Matt asks, trying to keep his own frantic fear out of his voice, pulling desperately at the zip ties around Foggy’s wrists until he finds the right tension point to make the plastic snap. There’s the sigh of Foggy’s hair moving, his soft “Yeah” at odds with the smell of fresh blood in the air.

Foggy pulls his hands out of Matt’s grip though he moves slowly, stiffly, and Matt listens carefully for the shift of broken bones, but there’s only the deafening thump, thump, thump of Foggy’s heart.

“I’d make a crack about you being a sight for sore eyes but it’s probably in poor taste.” Foggy laughs weakly, but his own anxiety is thick in the air, sour with sweat and dread, his every word shivers in his throat.

Matt makes his way to the front of the chair to free Foggy’s legs and then reaches for Foggy’s hands. Matt rubs his own hands up and down Foggy’s arms, listens as the blood flows through Foggy’s body, slowly comes back to Foggy’s hands. Foggy’s breathing shudders in his chest, and when he pulls his hands away this time it’s to touch Matt’s own face. Foggy’s fingers are cold, his thumb trembles over Matt’s bottom lip as he wipes away the blood that’s gathered there after a well-thrown punch Matt hadn’t ducked quickly enough. “Are you okay?”

Matt covers Foggy’s hand with his own, nods into Foggy’s cool palm and draws a deep breath to steady himself before he rises to his feet. He helps Foggy stand, listens to the pained hiss Foggy can’t hold back, the nervous whip of Foggy’s head turning side to side, searching the room for encroaching threats. “They’re down.” Matt says, but it doesn’t do anything to settle Foggy’s fleet-footed pulse. “ _Mat_ —” Foggy bites down hard before the rest of Matt’s name can escape from his mouth, and in that moment it’s the only word Matt wants to hear, as badly as he had longed to hear the familiar percussion of Foggy’s heart in the room in those long days it had gone missing. Foggy’s shaking and Matt knows they have to move now before the adrenaline dissipates and Foggy crashes where he stands. But neither of them move.

Foggy’s still breathing, still with Matt.

“You found me.” Foggy says, and Matt doesn’t know what to do with himself in the wake of the horrible emotion that rises up inside him, love that feels more akin to rage, squeezing around his heart. “What else was I gonna do?” Matt forces out, voice wavering against his will, and Foggy’s responding laugh rings out in the empty room, bends in the air, another note for Matt to memorize. “My hero.” Foggy whispers glibly, but his voice is soft as the memory of encroaching dusk.

Foggy’s face shifts beneath Matt’s gloved hand, a smile that twists into a frown, into a crooked grin that seems to collapse onto itself. All the desperation and fear that pushed Matt forward for the last few hateful days crest inside him. “Foggy…” Matt starts but he doesn’t know what to say, where to start, presses his masked forehead against Foggy’s.

“You found me.” Foggy repeats, his hand still on Matt’s face. Foggy tilts his face forward, their noses brush together, and there’s a single quiet moment where his breathing seems to stop all together. Matt lets his eyes fall shut behind the mask, counts one, two, three heart beats. Foggy exhales. Matt inhales. Everything tastes of copper.

“I found you.” Matt answers, thanks God for this, for Foggy’s beating heart. Foggy’s lips whisper over Matt’s skin, less than half a centimeter from Matt’s bloodied mouth. It becomes an afterthought when Foggy’s arms wrap around him, crush Matt close. Shaking, shaking, still shaking. Or maybe that’s Matt shaking, coming to pieces inside his skin, held together by Foggy’s arms.

-

Matt sits in the waiting room. Visiting hours ended hours ago. Karen went home a little over an hour ago, but Matt can’t bring himself to leave yet. Even if he’s only here and not at Foggy’s bedside. Matt can still hear him, the symphony of Foggy’s heart, the orchestra of his lungs, resonating evidence of Foggy’s life. Still there. Still Matt’s to guard for as long as Foggy allows him.

He tells himself it’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters to go! Thank you to all you who are still reading this!


	18. casually sitting on each other’s laps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As far as birthdays go this isn’t a bad one.

* * *

 

 

 

As far as birthdays go this isn’t a bad one, Foggy decides, watching Karen and Matt argue over where or not the term _debellatio_ is fair play in Scrabble. It isn’t exactly a bar crawl but it is fun. They have enough booze on hand to give Josie a run for her money. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of takeout containers surrounding them. Spicy vegetable fritters and paper thin dosas, lamb tikka and chicken vindaloo and coconut rice, garlic naan and stewed lentils. When the food had arrived Matt had just kissed his cheek and wished him a happy birthday and Foggy had been so honestly touched there was nothing he could do to keep himself from giving Matt the world’s dopiest grin and describing it to him in detail. And the company’s good.

Foggy is full and floaty and happy, laughing when Karen proudly thrusts her phone in Matt’s face, crowing that he can’t use _debellatio_. “Suck it Matt, it isn’t in the Scrabble dictionary.”

“He still can’t see that.” Foggy reminds her teasingly, and Karen holds up her palm, “Okay time out.”

“There are no time outs in Scrabble.” Matt scoffs, already running his fingers over his remaining tiles, apparently already skipping forward to his next turn. It might be Foggy’s birthday but Matt never plays for anything less than a win.

“Okay, go!” Karen says, and seconds later Matt’s phone vibrates and announces a new text message. Matt opens the link she sent him to a webpage where his screen reader informs him that _debellatio_ is not found. Foggy can’t help but laugh all the harder. “Like I said,” Karen smiles sweetly, picking up each of the tiles Matt had previously laid down and placing them back on the table by his side right hand. “No points.”

Foggy doesn’t know why he honestly thought Scrabble was a safer alternative than Monopoly.

-

Foggy closes his eyes reluctantly. “I already know it’s a cake guys. Spoiler alert: It is always a cake.” Karen’s giggle moves away, and then the darkness behind Foggy’s eyelids deepens. He sneaks a peek and sure enough the room is darker now, the majority of the light coming through the high windows and the ever-vigilant billboard sign outside. “Open your eyes!” Karen sing-songs as Matt rounds the kitchen counter, arms outstretched and leading the way with a candle-laden cake, their flickering golden lights casting tall shadows behind him.

Matt and Karen sing Foggy happy birthday loudly and predominantly off-key, but their enthusiasm makes up for what they lack in harmony. The candlelight sets their faces alight, Matt’s glasses shine a dark ruby red beneath their glow. Foggy’s groan bubbles into a laugh, the force of it makes him rock back in his chair, away from the cake with his name curled across the surface in blue frosting. Everything smells a hundred percent more of sugar. “Oh god, way to make a guy feel ancient.”

“Thirty-five candles,” Karen says with her widest smile, “And one more for luck.”

Matt’s grin widens, mischief lurking at the corners of his lips, “Think next year we’re gonna need a bigger cake to make room for them all, buddy. Now make a wish before the candles melt into the frosting.”

Foggy sticks his tongue out at him, hiccupping with laughter even as he pulls his hair back with one hand. He leans forward and studies the twinkling field of candlelight, the way the space above it goes fuzzy and soft with heat. He glances up at Karen’s smile and Matt’s glowing face. Foggy takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and makes a wish.

-

“You gonna trade me in for a newer model, Matty my man?” Foggy asks, Matt sprawled across his lap in a way that Foggy definitely owes to the combination of chocolate and alcohol coursing through both their systems. Karen’s still here after all, though they’ve moved their little makeshift party to the living room and she’s currently sitting crossed legged on the couch, shuffling a deck of cards for what is sure to be the most cutthroat game of Uno ever played.

It’s not that Foggy and Matt never indulge in displays of affection. They’re both tactile people, their friendship has always been punctuated by touch. Matt’s hand at Foggy’s elbow, Foggy’s arm around Matt’s shoulders, shoulder nudges and fist bumps and outright hugs that never demurred to be less than what they were. In this newest incarnation of their relationship it isn’t unusual to link arms on a night’s walk home, to press a kiss into the other’s cheek when they greet each other good morning or goodbye. But Matt is painfully private, a man shaped by the secrets he’s been forced to keep and the ones he chooses for himself. He enjoys having this part of their lives for himself, has told Foggy as much, blushing red and slightly sheepish, like he wasn’t sure how Foggy would respond. As though Foggy couldn’t understand the urge to hoard Matt’s affections, to secret away every single part of Matt that might belong to him alone. Foggy’s too old now to believe there’s any part of Matt for him to keep, but he can have the memory of this at least, collect these moments and string them together like a keepsake.

Still, Foggy can’t help being surprised Matt came over to him, sitting back in one of the armchairs opposite the couch, and dropped into the chair on top of him Even Karen had looked momentarily thrown by the act, blinking at them from across the coffee table. It’s hard to say if the color that rose in her face is because of the wine or any kind of embarrassment or discomfort or all of the above. She’d just given Foggy a small smile and asked if they were ready to lose. It’s moments like these that Foggy is glad to be surrounded by competitive weirdos.

On top of him, Matt is heavy but Foggy just folds his hands over Matt’s stomach to keep him in place. “Nah,” Matt answers, voice a cross between wistful and resigned, “I kind of like this one.”

“Oh be still my beating heart.” Foggy deadpans and Karen chuckles softly across from them, starting to deal the cards.

-

Karen goes home with half of the leftover food and a hefty wedge of chocolate cake, ultimately victorious. Foggy doesn’t have it in him to mind though. Matt’s mouth taste of buttercream and wine, his fingers slightly sticky at Foggy’s jaw from the piece of cake he was picking at before he decided the kitchen was the best possible place to bestow Foggy with one last gift. When he pulls away its only to kiss Foggy’s cheek, first one and then the other, then his nose and his chin, along his jaw and over his ear and above his eye and at the center of his forehead, Foggy laughs breathlessly the whole while, listens to Matt count between each kiss.

“Thirty-five.” Matt says, pressing another kiss to Foggy’s bottom lip, grinning like the idiot that he is and always will be, and Foggy grabs a fistful of Matt’s shirt, pulls him back into before he can get too far away.

“One more for luck.” Foggy laughs against Matt’s grinning mouth. Matt happily obliges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Braille Scrabble](http://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Scrabble-Game-Braille-Version/dp/B000YL1XEM) and [Braille Uno](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BTTRU90/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687682&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000YL1XEM&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0Y5F8PSNYQ6DS9XSG5A3) and yes, even [Braille Monopoly ](http://www.braillebookstore.com/Braille-Monopoly.1). Because everyone deserves the chance to play ruthless, friendship-ending games.


	19. did i mention fake dating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I guess I could do worse.” Foggy whispers wryly, shifting furthering beneath the blankets, the mattress springs sighing with his every move.
> 
> Matt’s laughter sounds too loud in the quiet house, its other occupants quiet in their respective rooms. “That’s the spirit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the sequel to chapter one. Basically, it's the wedding Foggy invited Matt to.

* * *

 

 

 

“It’s wonderful to see you again Matt.” Mrs. Nelson says, shaking his hand and pressing her cheek against his briefly, an approximation of a kiss. She fills his nose with the scent of lemon dish soap and fragrance-free hand lotion. Her fingers are sturdy and warm in his own, the thin skin of her hands bear the signs of decades of work. “I hope that son of mine has been behaving himself.”

Foggy sputters indignantly at Matt’s shoulder, readjusting his bag. “Told you she liked you more.” He pokes Matt in the back and Mrs. Nelson swats at Foggy, clicks her tongue at him. “I’ll take that as a no then.” She says, moving to the side and ushering them both in. Matt waits for Foggy to come up beside him, takes his offered arm and follows them both inside. Even inside the air still smells of moss and damp earth and greenery, the rustling of the trees in the early spring wind still prevalent through the walls and windows.

“How was the trip?” Mrs. Nelson asks up ahead just before the wall to Matt’s left opens into doorway, “I hope you boys don’t mind the downstairs room. Did your bus get caught in all that awful traffic? I told your father we had to head out early but would he listen? Of course not.”

“It was fine.” Matt answers when Foggy remains uncharacteristically silent. “And I’m sure this room will be fine. Right, Fog?” Matt surveys the room quickly, two windows on perpendicular walls, furniture, probably a dresser and at least two side tables, a bed. A bed.

Behind his glasses, Matt blinks.

Foggy’s heart gives pause and then quickens, his body temperature rises enough for Matt to notice. “Uh—Mom, Aunt Sherry knew I was bringing Matt right?”

“Of course she did Foggy.” Mrs. Nelson replies smoothly, already backing out of the room, “I’ll let you two get settled.” The door latches shut behind her.

It’s cowardly but Matt decides to let Foggy take this one, acts blissfully ignorant of anything that might cause discomfort for either of them. Because really, what is there to be uncomfortable about?

Foggy clears his throat. “So, I think…there might have been…a misunderstanding.”

-

It’s sort of funny. “I mean I don’t know whether to be insulted or touched that my extended family apparently thought we were dating in secret and decided _this_ was the best way to broach the subject.” Foggy says at night, after a rehearsal dinner and the spur of the moment decision that this isn’t really something they have to rectify. (“It’s Julie’s wedding man. Years from now I don’t want to be the first story that comes to mind when people get nostalgic about this weekend.”)

It’s only a lie by omission Foggy reasoned earlier, when they first came back to the room. They haven’t told anyone they are together, romantically. They just aren’t correcting anyone who might assume otherwise. It’s the same tactic Matt used to discourage Rachel’s advances, and he doesn’t know what it says about them that people can so easily read them as _this_.

“I think we can both agree that there are worse reactions.” Matt says, suddenly solemn. He thinks vaguely of his grandmother, the true Catholic, doesn’t have to wonder what she would say if she had lived long enough to see Matt now, lying in bed with his heart beating furiously inside his chest, skin tingling and hyperaware of the warmth given off by Foggy’s body just a few inches away. Foggy rolls towards him, knee nudging Matt’s leg beneath the blankets. The night’s a cool one and Matt’s glad for the weight of the blankets, for Foggy at his side, the deep, rhythmic in and out of his breathing in tangent with his beating heart. It’s not the first bed they’ve shared, but it’s the first they’ve shared since Matt became aware of this, of himself, since he put a name to the feeling, warm and soft and gentle, that rises up from inside his belly whenever Foggy is near. (He’s always near, Matt realized, and that’s the problem. How was Matt supposed to know it for what it was without adequate information for comparison?)

Matt turns on his own side, brings his knees up so that they bump into Foggy’s, the pillow cool beneath his cheek.

Foggy’s heart thumps, thumps, thumps in Matt’s ears (in his stomach, his wrists, his throat. _I always miss you_ Matt said without knowing the truth of it himself). “I guess I could do worse.” Foggy whispers wryly, shifting furthering beneath the blankets, the mattress springs sighing with his every move.

Matt’s laughter sounds too loud in the quiet house, its other occupants quiet in their respective rooms. “That’s the spirit.”

-

Matt can count all the weddings he’s been to on one hand but this is the first he’s attended inside a barn.

Foggy whistles next to him, his arm stretched across the back of Matt’s chair as he leans close to say, “I’m not saying this place looks haunted but if a ghost cuts across the room at some point during the ceremony, I will not be surprised.”

Matt chuckles under his breath, “Yeah?”

“Oh definitely. I was reading up on this place, apparently it’s a converted Amish barn. I mean sure, it looks super nice now, what with the candles and the ribbon-y things and the flowery stuff but, y’know, I can’t shake the feeling that the Scooby Gang should be investigating.”

The air is dizzyingly sweet with lavender and a half dozen other flowers Matt doesn’t know by name, candle wax, and the warring aromas of four dozen guests. And Foggy. Clean-shaven now, his hair pulled back in a sloppy knot at the back of his head, his single concession to his mother’s chiding. (“Mom I know it’s not professional. But I’m not cutting it until I absolutely have to.”) Matt misses the sound of it sweeping over his shoulders when Foggy turns his head.

“Does it bother you that this isn’t a church?” Foggy asks abruptly, drumming his fingers on his knee, fidgeting in his seat. “Like is that a thing for you?”

Matt’s mouth thins, not quite a smile or a frown. He’s honestly never thought about it. He doesn’t remember his parents’ marriage except for its ending. To date his own relationships have been short-lived, attraction giving way to dissatisfaction before either party can become too attached. There’s only ever been two exceptions. Elektra was the first and it when it was over Matt hadn’t known what to do with himself, more aware of his own cracks and jagged edges than he’d been in years. Afterward he hadn’t been in any rush to repeat the experience.

The second is sitting beside him in a converted barn waiting for a wedding ceremony to begin.

“Not really.” Matt answers honestly, clutching at his cane, which he still has laying in his lap. “I’ve never believed you had to be in a church to be married in the eyes of God.”

Foggy makes a considering noise, a soft hum at the back of his throat that vibrates beneath his skin. His breathing changes, a fragmented pause before it shifts, whatever he was about to say delayed in favor of: “I think you’ll make a beautiful bride Matty, no matter the setting.”

Matt’s snort gets drowned out by the opening notes of the wedding march.

-

Foggy keeps his word and keeps Matt in drinks.

The reception is well underway, the dinner plates cleared away and the dance floor beginning to reach capacity as people kick off shoes and their own inhibitions, the sun finishes its decent over the forested mountains. Matt keeps his dress shoes on, but he sheds his suit jacket, loosens the tie at his throat, warm under the lights strung across the barn rafters. Foggy reappears with another round of drinks in one hand and a plate of sugary snacks in the other. He describes his bounty to Matt, goes counterclockwise around the plate: rosewater meringues, salted caramel truffles, lavender-honey macaroons, miniature cupcakes and chocolate covered fruit. “I’m liking this dessert bar trend. I vote we keep it forever.” Foggy says appreciatively after they’ve sampled most of the things he’s brought. They split the last of the fruit tartlet, Matt licks pastry cream off his thumb, smiles at the sound of Foggy’s quickening pulse.

“It’s not bad.” Matt agrees, sugar buzzing through his veins.

“Frankie!” Comes an excited voice from nearby, accompanied by the swish of beading that grows louder the closer it comes, “Don’t tell me you’re going to let your young man sit in the corner all night long.” Matt places the voice as Foggy’s Aunt Sherry, mother of the bride. “Our Frankie is quite the dancer.” She adds teasingly, champagne rounding out her words as much as the happiness of the day does. Matt’s smile widens and he turns his face in the direction of her voice, answering, “Oh I know ma’am.”

Foggy’s fist bangs against Matt’s thigh under the table and Matt kicks at his ankle in retaliation as Foggy’s aunt wanders over the next table.

Foggy sits in considering silence, one song turning to another, softer, slower. “Well, I definitely can’t just leave Baby in a corner.” He says at last, turning in his seat so that he’s fully facing Matt. “What do you say Matt? And before you answer, remember, my whole family will blame me if you say no and at least half a dozen people will be ready and waiting to let you know you can do better.”

Matt grins, gesturing in the direction of the dance floor, the slowing bodies turning in slow circles to match the tempo of the newest song. “Fine, but only to save your good name.”

Foggy stands. Matt leaves his cane folded under his seat, takes Foggy’s arm by the wrist and allows him to lead the way towards the dance floor. There’s a second’s silent negotiation as they figure out who will lead, and then Foggy’s right hand takes Matt’s left, lifts them together so that they’re roughly shoulder level. Matt follows Foggy’s lead, cups Foggy’s shoulder with his right hand and steps forward with his left foot. “It never fails to surprise me how good you are at this, buddy.” Foggy sounds pleasantly bemused, his left hand against the seam of Matt’s shoulder. “Though it does fill my head with visions of you slow dancing with a nun at prom.”

Matt’s lips twitch into an even wider smile at the thought. “I never went to prom.”

Foggy makes a distressed sound. “You jest, surely.”

Matt shakes his head, maneuvering them through the next box step. “Somehow being a blind orphan did not make me the most popular kid in class.” He says drolly, Foggy’s hand is heavy in his own, his fingers tightening just barely in Matt’s own as he says, “Their loss.”

When the song ends Foggy’s arm drops around his waist, turns Matt in a sloppy quick circle that throws him momentarily off balance. This new song is quicker, something bouncy and light. For a single, rushing instant, the whole world spins under Matt’s feet.

-

“I can’t see what I’m doing.” Matt says stupidly, tugging helplessly at his tie, and Foggy, already giggly and slumping into his side at the foot of the bed, laughs harder, clumsy. “You, my friend, are a _disaster_.” Foggy chides, batting Matt’s fingers out of the way, though he doesn’t have much better luck. “You love me anyhow.” Matt retorts, happiness fizzing on his tongue like sparkling wine. Foggy’s fingers curl into the circle of his tie, tug Matt sideways. He doesn’t deny it.

They get it loose enough that Matt can wrangle the tie over his head, though it hurts his ears and knocks his glasses off completely. Foggy pulls his own dress shirt off over his head after undoing the minimum amount of buttons, elbow shoving into Matt’s side as he goes. His belt jangles as he wiggles out of his pants, and Matt follows suit, throws his dress clothes on the floor to worry about tomorrow. “Dude.” Foggy warns, picking Matt’s glasses up off the carpet, sweeping their clothes into his arms and dropping them on the vacant chair by the bed and out of the way. Months ago Matt would have blamed the alcohol, the hour, the unfamiliarity of their setting and the absolute familiarity Foggy represents for the warm, achy tightness in his throat. He knows better now.

“Thank you.” Matt mumbles, turning his glasses over in his hands.

“Someone’s got to take care of you, Murdock.” The mattress sinks beneath Foggy as he takes his seat again, and Matt allows the momentum to pull him closer, bends his head against Foggy’s shoulder. He’s sleepy now, his earlier laughter muted, gone heavy in his chest.

“Thanks for coming Matty.”

Matt nods, nose dragging over the sleeve of Foggy’s undershirt. “Thank you for wanting me here.”

Foggy’s hand squeezes at his knee.

In the morning there will be another bus to carry them back to the city. The city and school work and interviews and debt. Classmates and books and a thousand other distractions. Here it is only them, Foggy and Matt. Matt lifts his head, reaching out with his hand and resting it atop Foggy’s on his knee, turning at the waist to better face Foggy.

“Matt?” Foggy asks, but it doesn’t really sound like a question, not when he’s leaning forward, hand slipping out from under Matt’s, lifting to the nape of Matt’s neck instead. His fingertips are calloused but they rub at the tension Matt still carries in his muscles, and there’s no better feeling than that. “I always miss you.” Matt says, and if Foggy’s confused he doesn’t say anything, draws Matt closer, presses his lips to Matt’s. Soft. Careful. Hardly a kiss and yet.

Matt follows him when Foggy pulls away, lead and follow, angles their mouths together for two counts of three. And then another. And another. Until he’s not counting at all.

-

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to once more express my most sincere gratitude to you all for your lovely comments and countless kudos. I can honestly say I have never done anything like this for any fandom and I probably haven't written this much for any one pairing or fandom since my heyday in the Harry Potter fandom when I was a wee girl. I had so much fun writing these and I still love these crazy kids and their feelings. One day when I finish S2 I might even write some more for them provided school gets out of the way. :-D
> 
> Thank you all!


End file.
